aying here pulled out for the railroad just before him."

"Did you know the man?" asked Seaforth with unusual sharpness.

"No," said Horton. "He was timber-righting, but I'd a kind of fancy
I'd once seen somebody very like him working round Somasco."

Seaforth said nothing further, but swung himself into the saddle and
rode off at a gallop. He had been unsettled all day, and now it was
with vague apprehensions he sent his heels home and shook the bridle.

In the meantime Alton was riding almost as fast, though the saddle
galled him and he was stiff and aching. His senses also grew a trifle
lethargic under the frost, but he knew there would be little rest for
him until he reached Vancouver, and strove to shake off his weakness.
The horse was, however, unusually restive, and would at times break
into a gallop in spite of him where the trail was level, but Alton, who
fancied there was something troubling the beast, was more than a little
dubious of his ability to mount again if he got out of the saddle.
Until that day he had not ventured outside the ranch.

The shadowy pines flitted by him, here and there the moon shone down,
and the drumming of hoofs rang muffled by the snow through a great
silence which was curiously emphasized when twice a wolf howled.
Still, plunging and snorting now and then, the beast held pluckily on
while the miles melted behind them, and midnight was past when Alton,
turning, half-asleep, in his saddle, fancied he heard somebody riding
behind him. For a moment his fingers tightened on the bridle, but his
hearing was dulled by weakness and the numbing cold, and pressing his
heels home he rode on into the darkness.

It would probably have occurred to him at any other time that the beast
responded with suspicious readiness, but his perceptions were not of
the clearest just then, which was unfortunate, because the trail led
downwards steeply through black darkness along the edge of a ravine.
The rain had also washed parts of it away, and no ray of moonlight
pierced the vaulted roof of cedar-sprays. The drumming of hoofs rolled
along it, there was a hoarse growling far down in the darkness below,
and Alton strove to rouse himself, knowing that a stumble might result
in a plunge down the declivity. He could dimly see the great trunks
stream past him on the one hand, but there was only a gulf of shadow on
the other.

Suddenly a flash of light sprang up almost under the horse's feet. The
bea