A man under thirty needs neighbors and to stop up the current of his life with a long silence is like obstructing¹ a river—eventually the water either sweeps away the dam or rises over it, and the stronger the dam the more destructive is that final rush to freedom. Vic Gregg was on the danger side of thirty and he lived alone in the mountains all that winter. He wanted to marry Betty Neal, but marriage means money, therefore Vic contracted fifteen hundred dollars' worth of mining for the Duncans, and instead of taking a partner he went after that stake single handed. He is a very rare man who can turn out that amount of labor² in a single season, but Gregg furnished that exception which establishes the rule: he did the assessment³ work on fourteen claims and almost finished the fifteenth, yet he paid the price. Week after week his set of drills was wife and child to him, and for conversation he had only the clangor of the four-pound single-jack on the drill heads, with the crashing of the “shots” now and then as periods to the chatter⁴ of iron on iron. He kept at it, and in the end he almost finished the allotted⁵ work, but for all of it he paid in full.  
The acid loneliness ate into him. To be sure, from boyhood he knew the mountain quiet, the still heights and the solemn echoes, but towards the close of the long isolation⁶ the end of each day found him oppressed by a weightier sense of burden; in a few days he would begin to talk to himself.
 
From the first the evening pause after supper hurt him most, for a man needs a talk as well as tobacco, and after a time he dreaded⁷ these evenings so bitterly that he purposely spent himself every day, so as to pass from supper into sleep at a stride. It needed a long day to burn out his strength thoroughly⁸, so he set his rusted⁹ alarm-clock, and before dawn it brought him groaning¹⁰ out of the blankets to cook a hasty breakfast and go slowly up to the tunnel. In short, he wedded¹¹ himself to his work; he stepped into a routine which took the place of thought, and the change in him was so gradual that he did not see the danger.
 
A mirror might have shown it to him as he stood this morning at the door of his lean-to, for the wind fluttered the shirt around his labor-dried body, and his forehead puckered¹² in a frown, grown habitual¹³. It was a narrow face, with rather close-set eyes and a slanted¹⁴ forehead which gave token of a single-track mind, a single-purposed nature with one hundred and eighty pounds of strong sinews and iron-hard muscle to give it significance. Such was Vic Gregg as he stood at the door waiting for the coffee he had drunk to brush away the cobwebs of sleep, and then he heard the eagle scream.
 
A great many people have never heard the scream of an eagle. The only voice they connect with the kind of the air is a ludicrously feeble squawk, dim with distance, but in his great moments the eagle has a war-cry like that of the hawk¹⁵, but harsher, hoarser¹⁶, tenfold in volume. This sound cut into the night in the gulch¹⁷, and Vic Gregg started and glanced about for echoes made the sound stand at his side; then he looked up, and saw two eagles fighting in the light of the morning. He knew what it meant—the beginning of the mating season, and these two battling for a prize. They darted¹⁸ away. They flashed together with reaching talons¹⁹ and gaping²⁰ beaks²¹, and dropped in a tumult²² of wings, then soared and clashed once more until one of them folded his wings and dropped bulletlike out of the morning into the night. Close over Gregg's head, the wings flirted²³ out—ten feet from tip to tip—beat down with a great washing sound, and the bird shot across the valley in a level flight. The conqueror²⁴ screamed a long insult down the hollow. For a while he balanced, craning his bald head as if he sought applause, then, without visible movement of his wings, sailed away over the peaks. A feather fluttered slowly down past Vic Gregg.
 
He looked down to it, and rubbed the ache out of the back of his neck. All about him the fresh morning was falling; yonder shone a green-mottled face of granite²⁵, and there a red iron blow-out streaked²⁶ with veins²⁷ of glittering silicate²⁸, and in this corner, still misted with the last delicate shades of night, glimmered²⁹ rhyolite, lavender-pink. The single-jack dropped from the hand of Gregg, and his frown relaxed.
 
When he stretched his arms, the cramps³⁰ of labor unkinked and let the warm blood flow, swiftly, and in the pleasure of it he closed his eyes and drew a luxurious³¹ breath. He stepped from the door with his, head high and his heart lighter³², and when his hobnailed shoe clinked on the fallen hammer he kicked it spinning from his path. That act brought a smile into his eyes, and he sauntered to the edge of the little plateau and looked down into the wide chasm³³ of the Asper Valley.
 
Blue shadows washed across it, though morning shone around Gregg on the height, and his glance dropped in a two-thousand-foot plunge³⁴ to a single yellow eye that winked³⁵ through the darkness, a light in the trapper's cabin. But the dawn was falling swiftly now, and while Gregg lingered the blue grew thin, purple-tinted³⁶, and then dark, slender points pricked³⁷ up, which he knew to be the pines. Last of all, he caught the sheen of grass.
 
Around him pressed a perfect silence, the quiet of night holding over into the day, yet he cast a glance behind him as he heard a voice. Indeed, he felt that some one approached him, some one for whom he had been waiting, yet it was a sad expectancy³⁹, and more like homesickness than anything he knew.
 
“Aw, hell,” said Vic Gregg, “it's spring.”
 
A deep-throated echo boomed back at him, and the sound went down the gulch, three times repeated.
 
“Spring,” repeated Gregg more softly, as if he feared to rouse that echo, “damned if it ain't!”
 
He shrugged⁴⁰ his shoulders and turned resolutely⁴¹ towards the lean-to, picking up the discarded hammer on the way. By instinct he caught it at exactly the right balance for his strength and arm, and the handle, polished by his grip, played with an oiled, frictionless⁴² movement against the callouses⁴³ of his palm. From the many hours of drilling, fingers crooked⁴⁴, he could only straighten them by a painful effort. A bad hand for cards, he decided⁴⁵ gloomily, and still frowning over this he reached the door. There he paused in instant repugnance⁴⁶, for the place was strange to him.
 
In thought and wish he was even now galloping⁴⁷ Grey Molly over the grass along the Asper, and he had to wrench⁴⁸ himself into the mood of the patient miner. There lay his blankets, rumpled⁴⁹, brown with dirt, and he shivered at sight of them; the night had been cold. Before he fell asleep, he had flung the magazine into the corner and now the wind rustled⁵⁰ its torn, yellowed pages in a whisper that spoke⁵¹ to Gregg of the ten-times repeated stories, tales of adventure, drifts of tobacco smoke in gaming halls, the chant of the croupier behind the wheel, deep voices of men, laughter of pretty girls, tatoo of running horses, shouts which only redeye can inspire. He sniffed⁵² the air; odor of burned bacon and coffee permeated⁵³ the cabin. He turned to the right and saw his discarded overalls⁵⁴ with ragged⁵⁵ holes at the knees; he turned to the left and looked into the face of the rusted alarm clock. Its quick, soft ticking sent an ache of weariness through him.
 
“What's wrong with me,” muttered Gregg. Even that voice seemed ghostly loud in the cabin, and he shivered again. “I must be going nutty.”
 
As if to escape from his own thoughts, he stepped out into the sun again, and it was so grateful to him after the chill shadow in the lean-to, that he looked up, smiling, into the sky. A west wind urged a scattered⁵⁶ herd⁵⁷ of clouds over the peaks, tumbled masses of white which puffed⁵⁸ into transparent⁵⁹ silver at the edges, and behind, long wraiths⁶⁰ of vapor⁶¹ marked the path down which they had traveled. Such an old cowhand⁶² as Vic Gregg could not fail to see the forms of cows and heavy-necked bulls and running calves⁶³ in that drift of clouds. About this season the boys would be watching the range for signs of screw worms in the cattle, and the bog-riders must have their hands full dragging out cows which had fled into the mud to escape the heel flies. With a new lonesomeness he drew his eyes down to the mountains.
 
Ordinarily, strange fancies never entered the hard head of Gregg, but today it seemed to him that the mountains found a solemn companionship in each other.
 
Out of the horizon, where the snowy forms glimmered in the blue, they marched in loose order down to the valley of the Asper, where some of them halted in place, huge cliffs, and others stumbled out into foothills, but the main range swerved⁶⁴ to the east beside the valley, eastward⁶⁵ out of his vision, though he knew that they went on to the town of Alder⁶⁶.
 
Alder was Vic Gregg's Athens and Rome in one, its schoolhouse his Acropolis, and Captain Lorrimer's saloon his Forum⁶⁷. Other people talked of larger cities, but Alder satisfied the imagination of Vic; besides, Grey Molly was even now in the blacksmith's pasture, and Betty Neal was teaching in the school. Following the march of the mountains and the drift of the clouds, he turned towards Alder. The piled water shook the dam, topped it, burst it into fragments, and rushed into freedom; he must go to Alder, have a drink, shake hands with a friend, kiss Betty Neal, and come back again. Two days going, two days coming, three days for the frolic; a week would cover it all. And two hours later Vic Gregg had cached his heavier equipment, packed his necessaries on the burro, and was on the way.
 
By noon he had dropped below the snowline and into the foothills, and with every step his heart grew lighter. Behind him the mountains slid up into the heart of the sky with cold, white winter upon them, but here below it was spring indubitably. There was hardly enough fresh grass to temper the winter brown into shining bronze, but a busy, awakening⁶⁸ insect life thronged⁶⁹ through the roots. Surer sign than this, the flowers were coming. A slope of buttercups flashed suddenly when the wind struck it and wild morning glory spotted⁷⁰ a stretch of daisies with purple and dainty lavender. To be sure, the blossoms never grew thickly enough to make strong dashes of color, but they tinted and stained the hillsides. He began to cross noisy little watercourses, empty most of the year, but now the melting snow fed them. From eddies⁷¹ and quiet pools the bright watercress streamed out into the currents, and now and then in moist ground under a sheltering bank he found rich patches of violets.
 
His eyes went happily among these tokens of the glad time of the year, but while he noted⁷² them and the bursting buds of the aspen, reddish-brown, his mind was open to all that middle register of calls which the human ear may notice in wild places. Far above his scale were shrilling⁷³ murmurs⁷⁴ of birds and insects, and beneath it ran those ground noises that the rabbit, for instance, understands so well; but between these overtones and undertones he heard the scream of the hawk, spiraling down in huge circles, and the rapid call of a grouse⁷⁶, far off, and the drone of insects about his feet, or darting⁷⁷ suddenly upon his brain and away again. He heard these things by the grace of the wind, which sometimes blew them about him in a chorus, and again shut off all except that lonely calling of the grouse, and often whisked away every murmur⁷⁵ and left Gregg, in the center of a wide hush⁷⁸ with only the creak of the pack-saddle and the click of the burro's accurate feet among the rocks.
 
At such times he gave his full attention to the trail, and he read it as one might turn the pages of a book. He saw how a rabbit had scurried⁷⁹, running hard, for the prints of the hind³⁸ feet planted far ahead of those on the forepaws. There was reason in her haste, for here the pads of a racing⁸⁰ coyote had dug deeply into a bit of soft ground. The sign of both rabbit and coyote veered⁸¹ suddenly, and again the trail told the reason clearly—the big print of a lobo's paw, that gray ghost which haunts the ranges with the wisest brain and the swiftest feet in the West. Vic Gregg grinned with excitement; fifty dollars' bounty⁸² if that scalp were his! But the story of the trail called him back with the sign of some small animal which must have traveled very slowly, for in spite of the tiny size of the prints, each was distinct. The man sniffed with instinctive⁸³ aversion and distrust for this was the trail of the skunk⁸⁴, and if the last of the seven sleepers⁸⁵ was out, it was spring indeed. He raised his cudgel and thwacked the burro joyously⁸⁶.
 
“Get on, Marne,” he cried. “We're overdue⁸⁷ in Alder.”
 
Marne switched her tail impatiently and canted back a long ear to listen, but she did not increase her pace; for Marne had only one gait, and if Vic occasionally thumped⁸⁸ her, it was rather by way of conversation than in any hope of hurrying their journey.