Far up the canon Wilder heard the first fierce impact of the storm, for the heavy crash of a falling tree sounded above the roaring of the wind. By walking cautiously out to the extremity of a point that projected from the shelf upon which his cabin stood, he had been accustomed to see the snowy domes of Mt. Shasta. He knew that the storm sweeping down the canon was but a feeble echo of the mightier tumult on the great father of the north. In the hope that he might see something of this greater battle, he now made his way to the extremity of the point, the wind making his footing insecure; but only broad slaty clouds were visible in that direction, transmitting the deep rumblings of the hurricane that raged about Mt. Shasta’s higher slopes. It was while standing on the extremity of the point that the young man, turning his glance to the deep canon beneath him, beheld a thing that filled him with alarm. At the bottom of the canon, the Sacramento River, here a turbulent mountain stream, and now a roaring torrent from the earlier rains of the season, fumed and foamed as it raced with the wind down the canon, hurrying on its way to its placid reaches in the plains of California. The crooked road cut into the hither slope above the high-water level of the river was not the main highway running north and south through the mountains; it served the needs of a small local traffic only. Wilder felt both surprise and apprehension to observe a light wagon driven at a furious pace down the road, flying before the storm. The incident would have been serious enough had the wagon, the two horses, and the man and woman in the wagon belonged to the mountains. The horses were of fine blood, and were unused and unsuited to the alarming situation in which they now found themselves; the wagon was too elegant and fragile for the mountains in winter; and even at the distance that separated its occupants from Wilder, he could see that they were filled with a terror such as the mountaineers never know. The man was driving. Instead of proceeding with caution and keeping the horses perfectly in hand, he was lashing them with the whip. A man used to the mountains would never have been guilty of that folly. It was clear that they were heading down the canon for the main road, still some miles away, by following which a little further they would arrive at a station on the railway. Pieces of luggage in the rear end of the wagon indicated that the travellers must have been spending the summer or autumn in the remoter mountains, where some beautiful lakes offered special charms to lovers of nature. Obviously their departure had been delayed until the approach of the present storm drove them hurriedly away, to be overtaken here in the canon.