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CHAPTER IV

For two weeks Flash had seen no human being but Moran.

It was late in June, and even in the high passes the snow drifts had melted down until Moran could put his horses across from one valley to the next all over the Land of Many Rivers. Up in this high country the drifts never entirely disappear.

All through the summer, tiny streams trickled from the foot of each miniature glacier that lingered in some sheltered spot, and defied the sun to blot out its last few ragged patches before the early fall snows once more began to build it up.

These were great days for Flash.

He had known the stunted cedars of the badlands, the cottonwoods along the stream beds in the foothills, and the willow thickets that marked each sidehill spring, but this was his first trip into the heavily timbered hills themselves.

Now they wandered through solid forests for