THE COURT OF THE ORPHAN An hour before dusk found the company that had dined in the valley making their way up the dry bed of a stream, through a gorge which cleft a line of precipitous hills.

On either hand the bank rose steeply, giving no footing for man or beast.

The road was a difficult one; for here a tall, fern-crowned rock left but a narrow passage between itself and the shaggy hillside, and there smooth and slippery ledges, mounting one above the other, spanned the way.

In places, too, the drought had left pools of dark, still water, difficult to avoid, and not infrequently the entire party must come to a halt while the axemen cleared from the path a fallen birch or hemlock.

Every man was afoot, none caring to risk a fall upon the rocks or into the black, cold water of the pools.