“I don’t know that I asked you, though I meant to, but you and Tom staked two more claims off?” he said.

Okanagan appeared a trifle embarrassed, but Seaforth laughed.  “I’m afraid we didn’t.  You see, we started in a hurry, and I forgot.”

Alton stared at him a moment in bewilderment, and then through the pain that distorted it a curious look crept into his face.

“I figure you’re lying, Charley, and you don’t do it well,” he said.  “Folks don’t usually forget when they leave a fortune behind them.”

Seaforth smiled a little.  “Well, I may have been, but a fortune didn’t seem very likely to be much use to me then or now,” he said.

Alton gravely shook his head, but the two men’s eyes met for a moment, and Seaforth felt embarrassed as he turned his aside.  There was no need to tell the injured man that his welfare had appeared of more importance to his comrades than any profit that might accrue to them from the silver mine.

“Well,” he said simply, “you or Tom should get through to Somasco.”

“I hope so,” said Seaforth, as Okanagan signed to him.  “You see, we are all going there together by the shortest way, down the canon.”

Alton stared at him a moment.  “Now I had——­” he commenced, and then stopped abruptly.

Once more Seaforth smiled.  “Then you had thought about it, Harry?”

Alton’s eyes closed a little.  “I’m not one of the folks who go round telling people all they think,” he said.  “There’s no way down that canon.”

Seaforth understood what was passing in his comrade’s mind, and knew that Alton had not kept silence because of the risk to himself, for whatever was done the chances were equally against him.

“I’m afraid we can’t contradict you, but we shall discover to-morrow whether you are right or not,” he said.

Alton’s glance grew a little less direct.  “I would stop you if I could.”

“Of course,” said Seaforth, smiling.  “Still, you see you can’t, and when you go out mining with feather-brained companions must take the consequences.”

Alton, who said nothing further, apparently went to sleep, and there was silence in the tent save for the roar of water and the rattle of Okanagan’s knife.

They launched the canoe with the first of the daylight, dragging her through the crackling ice fringe under the bitter frost, and as they slid down the smooth green flow towards the stupendous rent in the mountain side the river poured through, Okanagan glanced towards it and then at the still figure lying huddled in the blankets in the bottom of the canoe.

“That, I figure, is one of the most useful men in the Dominion, and between Somasco and the place in England he has a good deal in his hands,” he said.

Seaforth understood him, and smiled grimly.  “We brought nothing into this world—­and we’ll be very close to the next one in a few more minutes,” he said.  “Hadn’t you better get way on, Tom?”