ing weight of snow with him, and the white flakes were
in his eyes, while now and then his breath failed him and he heard
Okanagan growling hoarse and half-articulate expletives.

"You have got to hold out, Charley. There's the canoe below you," he
said.

Seaforth braced himself for a last effort, and was never sure whether
he or Okanagan stumbled first, but his feet slipped from under him and
he fell upon Alton as Tom went down. Then the three slid together down
the slope of rock, and fell heavily over the edge of it. Seaforth was
partly dazed when Okanagan dragged him to his feet, but, he could see
that Alton lay very still with his face awry and that there was
consternation in the eyes of his comrade.

"Have we hurt you, Harry?" he said hoarsely.

Alton groaned a little, and his lips moved once or twice before
Seaforth caught any audible answer.

"I don't know that you did it, but I think that bone has gone," he said.

Okanagan, saying nothing, dropped on hands and knees, and while Alton
groaned drew the bands tighter about the shattered cedar-bark. Then he
rose up and looked at Seaforth, and the two stood silent for almost a
minute with the snow whirling about them. There was something very
like despair in Seaforth's eyes, and at last his comrade solemnly shook
his fist at the forest.

"We have got to get him home straight off," he said. Seaforth did not
ask how it was to be done when they had the range to cross, but as one
dreaming laid hold of his comrade again, and floundered towards the
canoe, which lay close by them now. He was still partly dazed when he
took up the paddle and dimly saw the white pines sliding past through a
haze of snow. Nor did he remember whether he or Okanagan set the tent
up when they reached the island near the canon, but he was sitting
inside it holding out a smoking can of tea to Alton when some time
after darkness had closed down Tom came in. The snow had ceased in the
meanwhile and a biting frost descended upon the valley through which
the roar of the canon pulsed in long reverberations. Okanagan dropped
the rifle he carried.

"I might have left the thing. The horse is dead," he said.

"Dead?" said Seaforth vacantly.

Okanagan nodded. "Yes," he said. "Somebody has saved me the trouble.
Two bullets in him."

Seaforth was almost past anger now, but the tea splashed from the can
he still held as he realized the thoroughness of the work of their
enemy.

"Then