As she talked she was slowly unwrapping the little parcel she had brought. Presently she held it out to him. It was just a box of homemade candy--fudge made with sugar and canned milk--that she had brought for their day's picnic. But it was a peace offering not to be despised. A heavy load lifted from Ben's heart. He waited his chance, guiding the boat with care, and then reached a brown hand. He crushed a piece of the soft, delicious confection between his lips. "Thanks, Beatrice," he said. "I'll remember all you've told me." XXIII It is a peculiar fact that no one is more deeply moved by the great works and phenomena of nature than those who live among them. It is the visitor from distant cities, or the callow youth with tawdry clothes and tawdry thoughts who disturbs the great silences and austerity of majestic scenes with half-felt effusive words or cheap impertinences. Oddly enough, the awe that the wilderness dweller knows at the sight of some great, mysterious canyon or towering peak seems to increase, rather than decrease, with familiarity. His native scenes never grow old to him. Their beauty and majesty is eternal. Perhaps the reason lies in the fact that the native woodsman knows nature as she really is: living ever close to her he knows her power over his life. Perhaps there is a religious side to the matter, too. In the solitudes the religious instincts receive an impulse that is impossible to those who know only the works of man. The religion that this gives is true and deep, and the eye instinctively lifts in reverence to the manifestations of divine might. When the swirling waters carried the canoe down into the gorge of the Yuga both Ben and Beatrice were instinctively awed and stilled. Ever the walls of the gorge grew more steep, until the sunlight was cut off and they rode as if in twilight. The stone of the precipices presented a marvellous array of color; and the spruce, almost black in the subdued light, stood in startling contrast. Ben saw at once that even were they able to land they could not--until they had emerged from the gorge--climb to the highlands. A mountain goat, most hardy of all mountaineers, could scarcely scale the abrupt wall. During this time of half-light they saw none of the larger forest creatures that at first had gazed at them with such wonder from the banks. The reason was simply that they could not descend and ascend the steep walls. Mostly Ben had time only for an occasional glimpse at the colossus above him. His work was to guide the craft between the perilous boulders. Occasionally the river slackened its wild pace, and at such times he stretched his arms and rested his straining eyes.