From the distance had come the whirring sound of a motor, the forerunner of a possible customer.

In the hills, an automobile speaks before it is seen.
Long moments of throbbing echoes; then the car appeared, a mile or so down the canon, twisting along the rocky walls which rose sheer from the road, threading the innumerable bridges which spanned the little stream, at last to break forth into the open country and roar on toward Dominion.

The drowsy gasoline tender rose.

A moment more and a long, sleek, yellow racer had come to a stop beside the gas tank, chortled with greater reverberation than ever as the throttle was thrown open, then wheezed into silence with the cutting off of the ignition.

A young man rose from his almost flat position in the low-slung driver's seat and crawling over the side, stretched himself, meanwhile staring upward toward the glaring white of Mount Taluchen, the highest peak of the continental backbone, frowning in the coldness of snows that never departed.