Save for the light of triumph in his eyes there was nothing in the whole scene to uplift the fancy.

The man's garments were tattered, the river had not washed the mire from him, and one of his boots was gaping, but the discovery he had made was fraught with great possibilities for that lonely valley, and changes in the destinies of many other men.

It had lain wrapped in stillness, a sanctuary for the beasts of the forest, countless ages since the world was young, being made ready slowly by frost and sun, and now man had come.
For five long minutes Alton looked into the future, and once more the fragrance of English roses seemed to steal faintly through the resinous odours of the firs.

Then he shook himself, and glanced again dubiously at the river.
"And now," he said half aloud, "I'll get supper.

It's a pity about that flour." As those who have sojourned in the bush of that country know, one can sup on reasty pork and green tea alone, when it is impossible to get anything better, but there are more appetizing compounds, and when the edge of his appetite had been blunted, Alton stopped with greasy fingers in the frypan and a little smile upon his face.
"And Somasco's mine, and Carnaby--when I ask for it, with all that lies beneath me here," he said, and sat very still a space, with eyes that had lost their keenness fixed upon the bush.