By that same trail he had gone on that memorable afternoon, and though five years had passed, the thoughts, the imaginings of that day, were as freshly present with him as if it had been but yesterday.

And though they were the thoughts and imaginings of a mere boy, yet to-day they seemed to him good and worthy of his manhood.
Down the trail, well beaten now, through the golden poplars he rode, his dogs behind him, till he reached the pitch of the ravine.
There, where he had scrambled down, a bridle path led now.

It was very different, and yet how much remained unchanged.

There was the same glorious sun raining down his golden beams upon the yellow poplar leaves, the same air, sweet and genial, in him the same heart, and before him the same face, but sweeter it seemed, and eyes the same that danced with every sunbeam and lured him on.

He was living again the rapture of his boyhood's first great passion.
At the mine's mouth he paused.