said. "Now something might stop me coming back with you
for that grub."

Seaforth said nothing, and he was a little graver than usual as they
packed the tent and blankets on the remaining horse, and an extra load
upon their own backs. A good many things might happen up there in the
north, including snow-slides, floods and frost, or the downward rush of
great trees in a _brulee_. That was possibly why he commenced a little
jingling song of the music-halls when they took the trail again, but
the white grandeur of the great peaks silenced him, or his breath gave
out as they floundered into fern-choked forest which was further
garnished with the horrible devil's club. Seaforth fell into a clump
of it, and for several minutes his comments were venomous, for though
he had been taught restraint in England and had further tuition in
Canada of a grimmer description, little can be expected from the man
who is gripped by that Satanic thorn.

It was half an hour before he went on again with his garments
ensanguined as the result of Alton's treatment with the knife, and he
gasped with relief when after a march of four miles, which occupied
most of what was left of the day, they came out into the more open
spaces of a big _brulee_. Some time in the hot autumn a fire had
passed that way, and the great trees towered above them, stripped and
blackened columns, that seemed to stretch between earth and sky. There
was no limb left them, and they rose, majestic in their cylindrical
symmetry, in apparently endless battalions, a vista of plutonic
desolation. Underfoot there was charcoal, and feathery ashes that
whirled aloft, and sprinkling the men with a fine grey powder slowly
settled again.

Alton was white in ten minutes, a gritty mire defiled the horse's
sides, and Seaforth floundered, coughing, ankle-deep at times, with
livid circles where he had rubbed the grime away about his eyes. There
was no sign of beast or bird, and the shuffle of weary feet and thud of
hoofs rose muffled out of a great silence, until there was a stupendous
crash somewhere in the distance. The charred trunks took up the sound,
and while they flung it from one to another Alton sprang forward and
smote the pack-horse with his fist.

"Jump!" he said hoarsely.

Next moment Seaforth felt himself hurled forward, and glancing over his
shoulder when he found his footing again saw a big trunk tilt a little.
It seemed to hang quivering for a second or two,