“No,” said Alton dryly.  “If there was, I’d sit down here and wait for him, but there’s nothing to stop a free miner prospecting round where it suits him in this country.”

CHAPTER XVII

ALONE

The frost held for two days, and the men made small progress through the dusty snow.  On the third it grew softer as they floundered wearily down into a valley, and Seaforth was aching in every limb when at last they halted at the edge of a river.  Not far below them it plunged frothing into a gloomy canon, and the roar of its turmoil came out of the thin white vapour which curled through the stupendous portals of stream-worn stone.  Seaforth felt moist and generally uncomfortable, as well as weary, for it was humid and a trifle warmer now, while his long boots were soaked, and at every step he dragged after him a clogging weight of snow.  He leaned against a cedar, glad to rest a while, and glanced inquiringly at his comrade.

Alton, however, showed no sign of fatigue.  He stood with the half-melted snow he had fallen in clinging about his deerskin jacket and trickling slowly down his tattered leggings, the bridle of the worn-out horse in his hand and a slight perplexity in his eyes.

“Now, I wonder if that will make a road to the south,” he said reflectively, pointing to the canon.

“I don’t know,” said Seaforth dryly.  “So far as my opinion goes, I scarcely think it will; but isn’t that a little outside the question?  Just now a road to the north would be more to the purpose.”

“Well,” said Alton, “a few sticks of giant powder here and there would make a difference, and one could do a good deal with a few score of men used to the pick and drill.”

“It would also,” said Seaforth, “take a good many dollars to pay them.”

Alton laughed as he turned, and pointed upstream, Darkness was not far away, and the river came down deep and slow out of the dimness.  Dark pines rolled up the hillsides that shut it in, and wisps of grey vapour drifted about them.

“There are,” he said, “dollars enough to build a road right down to Vancouver in those hills, and by and by one of two men will have his hands on them.”

“Isn’t that a somewhat curious way of putting it?” said his companion.

“Well,” said Alton, “there is as usual a reason.  Whichever of those men comes out on top will not have much use for the other fellow.  In the meanwhile we’ll be getting on.  There’s a canoe under the big boulders yonder, and the island should make the horse a corral.”