“Jump!” he said hoarsely.

Next moment Seaforth felt himself hurled forward, and glancing over his shoulder when he found his footing again saw a big trunk tilt a little.  It seemed to hang quivering for a second or two, then toppled further, and with a great humming came rushing down.  Then there was a stunning crash, and he stood gasping, deafened, and bereft of sight, amidst a stifling cloud of dust which swept into his mouth and nostrils and almost suffocated him.  When he could see anything again the horse was quivering, and the dust still rising from a shapeless pile a few yards behind him.  Alton, who was black and grey to the ankles, took his hat off, shook it, and put it on again in a curious unconcerned fashion which suggested that he did it unconsciously.

“Those six feet make a big difference,” said he.  As he spoke there was a crash a little farther behind them, another ahead, and they stood still; Alton gripping the horse’s bridle, Seaforth staring about him and scarcely breathing, while concussion answered concussion, until there was a silence that was almost bewildering again.

“Now,” said Alton quietly, “we’ll get out of this, though I don’t know that we need worry, because that should have cleared out the shaky ones.  When one goes, more of them generally follow.  It wouldn’t have grieved Hallam of the Tyee very much if we had been a yard or two farther back.”

Seaforth was possibly a little shaken, for he answered as he might not otherwise have done.  “I wonder if it would have displeased anybody else,” he said.

Alton jerked the horse to a standstill and looked at him.  “I don’t think you meant that, Charley.”

Seaforth noticed the glint in his comrade’s eyes, and departed a little from veracity.  “No,” he said.  “There are times when a man is apt to talk a little at random.”

Alton nodded.  “You’ll not forget again.  The man is a kinsman of mine.”

Seaforth smote the pack-horse, because he did not quite know what to answer.  He had vague suspicions concerning Deringham, but was quite aware that it would be inappropriate for him to express them.  Also, having seen a little of the smoother side of life in England, he knew a trifle more about young women of Miss Deringham’s description than his comrade did.  He admired the girl, as most men would have done, but the qualities Alton had evidently endowed her with were not especially apparent to him.  He also fancied that Miss Deringham would have found some of them distinctly irksome now and then.

It was dark when they came out of the brulee and pitched camp amidst the boulders beside a lonely lake.  The mists crawled about the pines that shut it in, and its surface was seamed with white by a little bitter wind.  Sombre clouds rolled lower down the surrounding hills, and Seaforth was glad to stretch his weary limbs under the lee of a big boulder while the fire snapped and crackled in front of him.