But it was true that men looked twice into Bill Bronson's face. His features were rugged, now his mouth and jowls were dark with beard, yet written all over his sunburned face was a kindliness and gentleness that could not be denied. There was strength and good humor in plenty; and it was hard to reconcile these qualities with an unquestioned wistfulness and boyishness in his eyes. They were dark eyes, the eyes of a man of action who could also dream, kindly, thoughtful eyes which even the deep shadows of the forest had not blinded to beauty. As he waited for his meal he crossed the dark road to the little frontier post office, there to be given his two months' accumulation of letters. He looked them over with significant anxiety. There were the usual forders from fur buyers, a few advertisements and circulars, and a small batch of business mail. The smile died from his eyes as he read one of these communications after another. Their context was usually the same,--that his proposition did not look good, and no investment would be made in a plan as vague as his. The correspondents understood that he had been grubstaked before without result. They remained, however, his respectfully,--and Bill's great hand crumpled each in turn. Only one letter remained, written in an unknown hand from a far-off city; and it dropped, for the moment, unnoticed into his lap. His eyes were brooding and lifeless as he stared out the hotel window into the darkened street. There was no use of appealing again to the business folk of the provincial towns; the tone of their letters was all too decisive. The great plans he had made would come to nothing after all. His proposition simply did not hold water. He had been seeking a "grubstake,"--some one to finance another expedition into the virgin Clearwater for half of such gains as he should make. In a few weeks more the winter would close down; the horses, essential to such a trip as this, had to be driven down to the gate of the Outside,--three hundred miles to the bank of a great river. He had time for one more dash for the rainbow's end, and no one could stake him for it. He had some food supplies, but the horse-rent was an unsolved problem. He could see no ray of hope as he picked up, half-heartedly, the last letter of the pile. But at once his interest returned. It had been mailed in a far distant city in the United States, and the fine, clear handwriting was obviously feminine. He didn't have to rub the paper between his thumb and forefinger to mark its rich, heavy quality and its beauty,--the stationery of an aristocrat. The message was singularly terse: My Dear Mr. Bronson: