cy now and then that was all I was meant to be. You are my partner,
Charley, and it would take a good deal more than Carnaby to separate
you and me."

Seaforth smiled again, though there was more than amusement in his
face, while Alton, who stopped beside the fire and filled two cans from
the kettle, shook his head reproachfully as he flung their contents
into the bush.

"That's what comes of talking too much. You have forgotten to put in
the tea," he said.

They lay down early, rolled in the blankets, with the tent across them,
for the wind that lashed the lake rendered it advisable not to erect
it, but it was some time before Seaforth went to sleep. He fancied he
understood Alton's assertion that he was not sure Carnaby was his, for
he knew his comrade was capable under certain conditions of almost
reasonless generosity. Nor did he desire a better partner, but he was
not sure that in the event of Alton transferring his activities to
England their friendship would be approved of by a possible mistress of
Carnaby. Women, Seaforth knew, regarded these things differently.

He slept at last, and awakening felt the tent heavy upon him. There
was also a curious rawness in the atmosphere, and he glanced about him
with a little gasp of consternation. The hillside gleamed coldly above
him under the creeping light, and only the pines were sombre, for the
earth was white with snow.

"Get up, Harry," he said, with something in his voice that roused his
comrade suddenly.

Alton rose, and his face became a trifle grim. "This," he said
quietly, "is going to mix up things. We'll have breakfast quick as you
can get it."

They were on their way in half an hour, struggling up the hillside
under the pines until at last the trees grew smaller towards the timber
line. Then they floundered painfully over what had been bare slopes of
rock and was now a waste of snow, with a dazzling field of whiteness.
between them and the blue. Up there the frost was biting, and the snow
lay fine as flour, blowing in thin wisps from under the horse's hoofs,
while the men's jean and deerhide were sprinkled with glittering
particles. The wind dropped towards sundown, and when, climbing a
great hill shoulder, they dipped again to the forest the snows flamed
crimson, against a pitiless blueness, out of which there seemed to fall
a devastating cold.

Diamonds glinted upon the shivering pines, sound seemed frozen, and
there was a great impre