ing."

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?"

O