They encountered other travelers - leather-clad Nadraks for the most part - although they did see a party of Drasnians laboring up a steep slope and, once, a long way off, what appeared to be a Tolnedran. Their exchanges with these others were brief and wary. The mountains of Gar og Nadrak were at best sketchily policed, and it was necessary for every man who entered them to provide for his own security.

The sole exception to this suspicious taciturnity was a garrulous old gold hunter mounted on a donkey, who appeared out of the blue-tinged shadows under the trees one morning. His tangled hair was white, and his clothing was mismatched, appearing to consist mostly of castoffs he had found beside this trail or that. His tanned, wrinkled face was weathered like a well-cured old hide, and his blue eyes twinkled merrily. He joined them without any greeting or hint of uncertainty as to his welcome and began talking immediately as if taking up a conversation again that had only recently been interrupted.

There was a sort of comic turn to his voice and manner that Garion found immediately engaging.

"Must be ten years or more since I've followed this path," he began, jouncing along on his donkey as he fell in beside Garion. "I don't come down into this part of the mountains very much any more. The streambeds down here have all been worked over a hundred times at least. Which way are you bound?"

"I'm not really sure," Garion replied cautiously. "I've never been up here before, so I'm just following along."

"You'd find better gravel if you struck out to the north," the man on the donkey advised, "up near Morindland. Of course, you've got to be careful up there, but, like they say, no risk, no profit." He squinted curiously at Garion. "You're not a Nadrak, are you?"

"Sendar," Garion responded shortly.

"Never been to Sendaria," the old gold hunter mused. "Never been anyplace really - except up here." He looked around at the whitetopped peaks and deep green forests with a sort of abiding love. "Never really wanted to go anyplace else. I've picked these mountains over from end to end for seventy years now and never made much at it except for the pleasure of being here. Found a river bar one time, though, that had so much red gold in it that it looked like it was bleeding. Winter caught me up there, and I almost froze to death trying to come out."