"No," said Alton dryly, "I don't think it is. Spring would have been nicer, but, you see, Hallam was crowding me. Did anything else strike you, Charley?"

"Nothing of much importance," said Seaforth, smiling. "Only that while we lie shivering here Hallam is probably dining in state in the big hotel at Vancouver. Jingling glasses, good wine, light and warmth, flowers and silver on the table. The contrast's a little exasperating."

Alton glanced at the saturated canvas and his steaming clothes, while Seaforth, for no apparent reason, stretched out one foot and kicked over the dinted kettle.

"There are folks who would think that's only fit," he said. "Mr.

Hallam is one of the men who are building up the future greatness of this wonderful country. At least, that's what they called him at the last big speech-making, but I don't quite see what good it would do us if you kicked the bottom of that kettle in, Charley. Now it's curious how a thing that's once started goes on. Jimmy took a notion that there was silver here, and that drew me in as well as Mrs. Jimmy. Then you came along, and presently it got hold of Hallam. The Somasco Consolidated has got drawn in, too--now there are you and I, with only the Almighty knows how much upon our shoulders, up here in the rain and snow."

Seaforth glanced at his comrade reflectively as he said, "I was wondering if there was anybody else."

Alton's face grew suddenly impassive. "Oh, yes," he said. "There's another man I don't know, the one who lighted the fire. He's back there somewhere."

Seaforth said nothing for a minute or two, but as he glanced about him the shadows seemed to grow darker beyond the flickering radiance of the fire, and the roar of wind in the branches angrier. He had been a prey to half-formed suspicions of late, and there was something sinister in the thought of that man who followed them.

"Harry," he said presently, "you have got most of the things you wanted so far?"

"Yes," said Alton quietly. "It wasn't always easy, and they didn't come to me, but I knew what I wanted, and I usually got it."

Seaforth made a sign of comprehension. "Did it ever occur to you that you had probably as much already as is good for you?"

Alton glanced at him with half-closed eyes. "A little plainer, Charley."

"You have Somasco, the liking of all the ranchers down the valley, the timber rights and mill. You have also Carnaby, and most folks would think you a fortunate man. Now the man who wants too much is occasionally sorry when he gets it."

Alton's eyes glinted. "I have a partner, too, who doesn't know where to stop," he said.

Seaforth met his comrade's gaze steadily. "This," he said reflectively, "is a good country. In fact I don't know a better one for the man who wants to live as he was meant to in the wind and sun, watching what he has worked for slowly grow. Is it a little thing, Harry, to see the oats and timothy where the forest had been, to clear a new way for the river with giant powder, and hear the big wheels humming where there was only a frothing rapid? Orchards, barns, and homestead built by your own labour, horses and herds of cattle all your own, and by and by the railroad coming through to bring you the long dreamed of prosperity. It's alluring, Harry?"

The glint was a trifle plainer in Alton's eyes, and his lean fingers were closed together. "I don't quite see where that trail leads to,"

he said quietly.

Seaforth laughed a little. "It is good to rise when the sun is creeping above the firs and plunge down into an ice-cold pool. Better still to lie on the verandah, tired in body, tranquil in mind, when the snows are fading and your work is done, knowing that every redwood hewn and new plough-furrow driven has been so much added to the prosperity of this province and the Dominion. It isn't a bad life--this one you were meant for, Harry."

"No," said Alton slowly. "There are times when I'm a very thankful man."

"Well, there is another one, and I have seen very tired men playing at being amused by the trifles that sickened them. They had, however, kept up the game so long that the manhood they were once proud of was only a memory. There are a good many of them in the old country, and some of them have sacrificed all they had for the one thing that wasn't good for them. It was too late when they found it out, Harry."

Alton's face was grim. "It would," he said, "be a pity if you and I fell out, Charley."

Seaforth laughed in a curious fashion. "It would, but I scarcely think we shall. You and I are partners, and a little more, and I will keep silent now I have spoken."

Alton said nothing, but sat smoking and staring at the fire, until Seaforth rolled himself in his damp blankets and sank into not altogether refreshing sleep. A misty light was creeping into the tent when he was awakened by the thudding of his companion's axe, and rising stiffly with the ache at the hip-joint which every bushman knows, went out shivering.

"Coffee!" said Alton. "I left it in the deerhide bag in the canoe."

Seaforth's limbs were too stiff to be much use to him yet, and he blundered amidst the boulders, falling over one or two, before he reached the shingle where they had partly drawn out the canoe. Then he stood still, staring about him, and saw only the green-tinted water sliding by under the uncertain light, and the pines on the other side growing a trifle plainer through the mist. Turning, he hastened along the shingle until a shelf of rock shut it in, and then back to the tent again. Alton laid down the axe, for there was something in his comrade's face that troubled him.

"Have you got it?" he asked.

"No," said Seaforth very quietly. "You told me the bag was in the canoe."

"Of course," said Alton. "Well, wasn't it there?"

"I don't know," said Seaforth. "I couldn't find the canoe."

Alton said nothing further, but stumbled in haste towards the river.

Seaforth followed him more slowly, and Alton stood very still when he found nothing but boulders and shingle. Then he stooped and bent over a little depression in the pebbles, and when he rose again his face was impassive.

"The water has risen since last night, but I'm not sure that accounts for it," he said. "The bank slopes a little, but we pulled most of her out."

"I think we pulled the whole of her clear," said Seaforth quietly.

Alton stood silent for almost a minute with his right hand clenched.

Then he said slowly, "You'll have to go down and look for her while I push on, Charley."

Seaforth was about to speak, but he saw his comrade's eyes and did not express himself as he had meant to. "Yes," he said. "I don't know that I shall find her."

The two men looked at each other, until Alton moved his head. "Still, one of us must try," he said. "Take all you can carry, and a rifle.

I'll load up as much as I'm fit for, and we'll cache the rest. You'll come on after me, or join Tom, as you think best."

Seaforth smiled a little. "I'll come on, and even if I sacrifice something else I'll take the rifle."

Alton said nothing, and for an hour they were busy about the camp.

Then as they stood a moment, loaded like beasts of burden, under the dripping pines, Seaforth held out his hand.

"Harry, are you wise?" he said.

"I don't know," said Alton simply; "but I'm going on."

It was noticeable that they shook hands, which they were not in the habit of doing, and that there was a very faint but perceptible tremor in Seaforth's voice.

"Good-bye," he said.

"Well," said Alton with a smile, which seemed to lack heartiness. "I wouldn't put it that way."

He swung forward with his face towards the north, but the smile faded and his fingers closed on the rifle when he heard Seaforth struggling southwards through the bush.

"Two of them gone now," he said. "I wonder if that is what the other fellow wanted."

CHAPTER XVIII

IN THE WILDERNESS

Dusk was closing down on the valley, and the rain had ceased, when Alton unstrapped his load, and stood with aching shoulders amidst the dripping pines. He could hear the rattle of the twigs that met and brushed through the shrill wailing of the wind about the sombre spires that pierced the growing darkness far above him, and the harmonic murmuring that rose and fell in cadence along the dim, vaulted roof.

There was, however, nothing else beyond the growl of a rapid somewhere up the valley, and stretching out his arms wearily, he stooped with a little smile that was grim rather than mirthful and caught up the axe.