Once more Seaforth smiled. "Then you had thought about it, Harry?"

Alton's eyes closed a little. "I'm not one of the folks who go round telling people all they think," he said. "There's no way down that canon."

Seaforth understood what was passing in his comrade's mind, and knew that Alton had not kept silence because of the risk to himself, for whatever was done the chances were equally against him.

"I'm afraid we can't contradict you, but we shall discover to-morrow whether you are right or not," he said.

Alton's glance grew a little less direct. "I would stop you if I could."

"Of course," said Seaforth, smiling. "Still, you see you can't, and when you go out mining with feather-brained companions must take the consequences."

Alton, who said nothing further, apparently went to sleep, and there was silence in the tent save for the roar of water and the rattle of Okanagan's knife.

They launched the canoe with the first of the daylight, dragging her through the crackling ice fringe under the bitter frost, and as they slid down the smooth green flow towards the stupendous rent in the mountain side the river poured through, Okanagan glanced towards it and then at the still figure lying huddled in the blankets in the bottom of the canoe.

"That, I figure, is one of the most useful men in the Dominion, and between Somasco and the place in England he has a good deal in his hands," he said.

Seaforth understood him, and smiled grimly. "We brought nothing into this world--and we'll be very close to the next one in a few more minutes," he said. "Hadn't you better get way on, Tom?"

They dipped the paddles, and the canoe slid on smoothly under the clear sunlight and the frost towards the film of mist where the oily green now broke up into the mad white tumult that poured down the canon.

Then the strokes quickened, the craft lurched beneath them, and the sunlight was blotted out as they plunged into spray-filled dimness.

High through the vapour towered smooth walls of stone, and the river that rebounded from them was piled in a white track of foam midway between. The canoe swept onwards down it apparently with the speed of a locomotive, and Seaforth, crouching in the bows, gripped his paddle with bleeding fingers that had split at the knuckles with the frost.

He watched the smooth walls whirl by him mechanically, and remembered that the canon could not last forever. There was comfort in the reflection, because the miles would melt behind them at the pace they travelled at. That was so long as the stream flowed straight and even, but he did not care to contemplate what would happen if it foamed over any obstacle.

For a time he saw nothing but froth and spray and flitting stone, and then the roar that came back from the towering walls swelled into a great diapason terrifying and bewildering. Seaforth glanced over his shoulder and saw that Okanagan was dipping his paddle.

"A fall or a big rapid. We've got to go through," he said.

Seaforth swept his gaze aloft for a moment while the bewildering roar grew deafening. Nothing that had life in it could scale the horrible smooth walls that hung over them, and through a rift in the vapour he could see a filigree of whitened pines that seemed very far away projected against the blue. They were, he fancied, at least a thousand feet above him, and he and Okanagan alone far down in the dimness of another world with their helpless companion. Then he nerved himself for an effort as he looked forward into the spray and vapour that whirled in denser clouds ahead. Nothing was visible through its filmy folds, but his flesh shrank from the tumult of sound that came out of it.

"Hold her straight," cried Okanagan, in a breathless roar, and Seaforth just heard his voice through the diapason of the river.

Then the canoe lurched beneath them, and sped faster still, plunging, rocking, rolling, while the froth beat into her, and Seaforth whirled his paddle in a frenzy. The shrinking had gone, and he was only conscious of a curious unreasoning exaltation. A pinnacle of rock flashed by them, there was a roar from Tom, and straining every sinew on the paddle they swung, with eyes dilated and laboured breath, sideways towards the wall of stone. Then the froth that leapt about it swept astern, and they were going on again, faster than ever, and apparently down a declivity, the spray beating upon them and the canoe swinging her bows out of a frothing confusion. Seaforth heard a cry behind him, but could attach no meaning to it, and whirled his paddle mechanically, until the craft appeared to lurch out from under him, and fall bodily with a great splashing. Twice, it seemed to him, she swung round a great black pool, and then they were driving forward again a trifle more smoothly, while here and there a stunted pine that clung to the rocks came flitting back to them. He felt Okanagan's paddle in his shoulder, and glanced round a moment. There was a green strip behind them that seemed to roll itself together and fall roaring into the pool, but a wisp of mist that blotted out everything drifted across his eyes.

Seaforth retained no very clear impression of the remainder of that day's journey, but it was late in the afternoon when the walls of rock fell back a little on either hand, and it seemed to him that they lay motionless in the bottom of a great pit while the hills slowly rolled away behind them. Here and there a strip of shingle now divided rock from river, and when presently Okanagan called out, Seaforth felt by the change of motion that he was backing his paddle. Looking forward he saw the cause of it, for there were boulders in the channel, and a great fir lay jammed across them. They were almost upon it when the bows reached the shingle.

Okanagan helped him to carry Alton ashore, and then stood still looking at the fir, which was of a girth seldom seen in any other country.

"She's lying right across, and we've got to chop our way through," he said. "You'll fix the tent and make supper while I take first turn."

He came back dripping presently, and Seaforth was waist-deep in icy water when he reached the tree. The shingle slipped beneath him, the stream frothed about his limbs, and he felt very puny and helpless with that great log before him. His hands were split and opened by the frost, and the wounds bled at every stroke, but while the red glare of the fire Okanagan was feeding with washed-up branches flickered about him he panted and smote, until the power went from him, and his comrade took his place.

It was apparently a task for demigods, but it is no unusual thing for the men who come to grips with nature unsubdued in the frozen North to attempt, and accomplish, more than flesh and blood seem capable of, and all night long they fought their grim battle, hewing until sight and breathing failed them, and then staggering back to lie dripping and gasping by the fire. Arms grew powerless, eyes were dim, the rents in their wet hands gaped, and there was blood upon their deerskins; but little by little the notch widened, until at last the steel splashed in the water that deflected it, and Seaforth fancied they were beaten.

Still, there was no relaxing of effort, and as the stars were paling in the rift high overhead he heard a sound that was not the monotone of the river. Another man heard it, too, for Okanagan came floundering towards him through a tumult of foam and wrested the axe from his hand.

For five minutes he smote fiercely, and then raised a hoarse, half-articulate cry of triumph.

"She's going."

There was a smashing and snapping. The huge trunk rolled a little, rent, and swept away, and Seaforth reeling shorewards sat down with bleeding hands in the ashes, laughing foolishly, until Okanagan stooped and smote his shoulder.

"Get up," he said. "It's time we were going."

There was not light enough to see by, and they had eaten nothing during all those hours of heroic toil, but Seaforth seemed to realize that the issue lay beyond them now, and it did not matter greatly what they did or failed to do. He was also consumed by a desire to escape from that horrible place of shadow, and striking the tent in clumsy haste they launched the canoe. After that he remembered little, though he had a hazy recollection of stopping somewhere and helping Tom to make a fire, for there was wood in abundance everywhere. Whether he ate anything he did not know, but all day the canoe slid on comparatively smoothly, and they toiled at the paddle until hands and arms seemed to move of their own volition. Seaforth felt that he would gladly have lain down and frozen, but an influence which had apparently nothing to do with his will constrained him to labour on.

At last, when the stars were shining and the moon hung red in a broader strip of sky, the curious sustaining animus seemed to desert him, and he lurched forward with a little gasp, while the paddle almost slipped from his stiffened fingers.

"Hold up," said Okanagan. "Stream's running slow, and the hills are opening there. I'm not sure that we're not close on the Somasco valley."

Seaforth made a last effort, but his fingers lost their grasp, and when he slipped forward again his paddle slid away behind them. Then he groaned a little, and lay still in the bottom of the canoe. The next thing he was clearly conscious of was the ringing of a rifle and he raised himself as the woods flung back the sound. They seemed some distance from him now, and the moon shone down on a broadening strip of water. Again the rifle flashed, and he wondered vacantly whether the twinkle that perplexed his hazy sight could be lights that blinked at them.

"Where have we got to, Tom?" he said.

Okanagan laughed softly. "Tolerably close on Somasco," he said. "I think they've heard us at the mill."

Then as Seaforth listened, a shout came ringing across the glinting space before them that seemed curiously still. "Hold on. We're coming. Is that you and the others, Tom?"

Okanagan laughed again, and the canoe stopped amidst the ice when the paddle fell from his hand.

"It's a good deal less of us than there was when we started out," he said.

CHAPTER XXII

MISS DERINGHAM DECIDES

It was a clear winter day, when a big side-wheel steamer bound for way ports down the Sound lay at the wharf at Vancouver waiting for the mail. Towering white in the sunshine high above the translucent brine, she looked with her huge wheel-casings, lines of winking windows, and triple tier of decks more like a hotel set afloat than a steamer, and the resemblance was completed by the long tables set out for breakfast in the white and gold saloon. No swarm of voracious passengers had, however, descended upon them as yet, for though winter touches the southern coast but lightly, it is occasionally almost Arctic amidst the ranges of the mountain province, and the Pacific express was held up somewhere by the snow.

Bright though the sunshine was, a bitter wind came down across the inlet from the gleaming hills that stretched back, ridged here and there by the sombre green of pines, towards the frozen North, and Deringham and his daughter, who were setting out on a visit to a town of Washington, had sought shelter in the saloon. Alice Deringham leaned back in a corner, a very dainty picture in her clinging furs, with the ivory whiteness of the panelling behind her. Her father sat close by, with a face that was slightly puckered, and thoughtful eyes, turning over a packet of letters that had reached him from England the day before, and his daughter fancied that their contents by no means pleased him. There were a few of her passengers in the saloon, and one couple attracted her languid attention.

She could see the man plainly, and he was one of the usual type of Western citizen, keen-eyed, quick and nervous of movement and gesture, and incisive of speech. He had a bundle of papers before him, and appeared to be making calculations in pencil while he dictated to his companion. Now and then she caught disjointed fragments of his conversation.

"Got that quite straight? Fall in securities, silver depreciating.

Now did I put in anything about the Democrats going in?"

Miss Deringham could make but little of this, and had always cherished a faint contempt, which she may have inherited from her mother, who had been born at Carnaby, for anything connected with business. Still, she was mildly interested in the man's companion, whose face she could not see. The girl was dressed very plainly, and Miss Deringham decided that the fabric had not cost much to begin with and was by no means new. It, however, set off a pretty, slender figure, and the girl had fine brown hair, while the little ungloved fingers on pencil were white and shapely. Alice Deringham wondered with a languid curiosity what her face was like, and felt a half contemptuous pity for her. She did not consider such an occupation fitting for a woman.

Then her attention was diverted as a boy with a satchel calling out "_Colonist_," in a shrill nasal drawl, came in, and she vacantly watched a man who purchased a paper spread out the sheet.

"They've got that fellow up at Slocane," he said to a companion. "Yes, sir, sent him down for trial, and it took a special guard to keep the boys off him. I guess if he'd done it down our way they wouldn't have worried, but put him in a tar-keg and set a light to him. They're way behind the times in the Dominion."

"Killed him in his sleep for a hundred dollars," said another man, glancing over the reader's shoulder, but Miss Deringham was not interested in the murder she remembered having heard about. She was, however, a trifle astonished to see that her father was watching the gathering group with a serious look in his eyes, but he glanced down somewhat hastily at his papers when he met her gaze. Then the voices grew less distinct, and that of the man dictating broke monotonously through them until a steward approached her father with an envelope in his hand.

"Mr. Forel has just sent it down, sir," he said. "You're Mr.

Deringham?"

Deringham tore the envelope open, and while he sat staring at the paper inside it his daughter noticed that there was a little pale spot in his cheek. His hand also appeared to tremble slightly when, saying nothing, he passed the telegram across to her.