Until the ice broke up, Kent worked at Hay River.

When it was safe, he started down the Mackenzie in a canoe.

It was late in June when he turned up the Liard to the South Nahani.
"You go straight through between the sources of the North and the South Nahani," Marette had told him.

"It is there you find the Sulphur Country, and beyond the Sulphur Country is the Valley of Silent Men." At last he came to the edge of this country.

He camped with the stink of it in his nostrils.