de a slight hollow in a
wall of rock. A few large stones had been rudely placed on one another to
form a shelter; there were still some small spruce branches, which had
evidently been used for a roof, scattered about; and the remains of a
torn and moldering blanket lay near by. In another place was a holed
frying-pan and a battered kettle.

Nasmyth gravely took off his shapeless hat, and stood glancing about him
with a fixed expression.

"This," he said quietly, "is where my friend died--as you have heard,
they afterward took his body out. There are few men who could compare
with that one; I can't forget him."

There was nothing to be done, and little that could be said; and they
turned away from the scene of the tragedy, where a man, who to the last
had thought first of his companions, had met his lonely end. Launching
the canoe, they sped on down-river, making a few easier portages, and
four days later they landed on the bank of a turbulent reach shut in by
steep, stony slopes. There was a little brushwood here and there, but not
a tree of any kind.

"It was on this beach that Gladwyne made one cache," said Lisle. "If
there had been a cypress or a cedar near, he'd have blazed a mark on it.
As it is, we'd better look for a heap of stones."

They searched for some time without finding anything, for straight beach
and straight river presented no prominent feature which any one making a
cache would fix upon as guide. Lisle directed Nasmyth's attention to
this.

"There was deep snow when Vernon came down the gorge, on this side," he
pointed out. "It doesn't follow that he was with the others when they
buried the stores--he might have been carrying up a load--and it's
possible they couldn't give him a very exact description. If I'm right in
this, he'd have a long stretch of beach to search, and a man's senses
aren't as keen as usual when he's badly played out."

Nasmyth made no comment, but his expression suggested that he would not
be disappointed if they failed to strike the cache. Shortly afterward,
however, Jake called out, and on joining him they saw a cross scratched
on a slab of slightly projecting rock. Even with that to guide them, it
was some time before they came upon a few stones roughly piled together
and almost hidden in a bank of shingle.

"First of all, I want you to notice that this gravel has slipped down
from the bluff after the cache was made," Lisle said to Nasmyth. "With
snow on the ground an