on did not answer, for his voice seemed to fail him, and he blinked
at the man who bent over him.

"You have been a long while, Charley, and I came very near putting a
bullet into you just now," he said.

"Well," said Seaforth, "I did my best, and Tom's coming along behind
me. What are you doing here anyway?"

Alton glanced at him bewilderedly. "I don't quite know, but I got the
deer. It's somewhere around here," said he.

Seaforth's face grew suddenly grave as he stopped and shook his
comrade, then let his hand drop as he saw a red trickle spreading
across the crusted overalls.

"Good Lord! Are you hurt, Harry, and what's all this?" he said.

Alton glanced up at him with dimming eyes. "The thing's broken out
again. I think it's blood," he said, and while his arm slipped from
under him, slowly rolled over with his feet in the smoking fern.

CHAPTER XX

THE NICKED BULLET

The grey daylight was creeping into the little tent and Alton sleeping
at last when Seaforth rose to his feet. His eyes were heavy with the
long night's watch which had followed a twelve hours' march, and he
shivered as he went out. The morning was bitterly cold, and a fire
burned redly outside the tent, but there was no sign of Okanagan, who
had joined him during the night, nor had any preparations for breakfast
been made.

"Tom," he twice called softly, but only the moaning of the branches
overhead answered him, and with a little gesture of impatience he
strode into the bush.

Seaforth had no definite purpose, but he was glad to stretch his
stiffened limbs, and instinctively turned towards the spot where he had
found his comrade. As he approached it he stopped, and watched the dim
moving object that caught his eyes with some bewilderment. Tom of
Okanagan was kneeling beside a thicket with a stick in his hand, and
apparently holding it carefully in line with a fir. After moving once
or twice he drove it into the soil, and crawled on hands and knees into
the fern so that Seaforth could only see his boots, and surmise by the
rustling that he was groping amidst the withered fronds. Once he
caught a muffled expletive, after which the rustling ceased awhile, but
it commenced again, and Seaforth wondered the more when Okanagan
crawled out of the opposite side of the thicket, and set up a second
stick in line with the other. He had not the faintest notion of what
his companion could be doing.

"Are you finding anything down