The snarling and spitting of a panther came out of the darkness, and it was only by main force Alton dragged the Cayuse past.  Then he laughed a little.  “It’s a pity we didn’t bring a rifle along,” he said.  “Panthers must have been made for something, or they wouldn’t be here, but it’s a beast a white man has no kind of use for.”

It was an hour later, and snowing fast, when they climbed out of the valley and floundered over shale and slippery rock amidst scattered pines to the forking of the trail.  One arm of it dipped again, and wound through a deep sheltered hollow to the Somasco ranch, the other ran straight along the hillside to Townshead’s dwelling.  The hillside was also steep, the beasts were tired, and the trail was very bad.  Seaforth glanced at his comrade when they stopped a moment, and saw him dimly, tugging at the Cayuse’s bridle, through the snow.

“It’s a long way to Townshead’s.  Still, I think we can make it out,” he said.

Alton laughed.  “We have got to.  There’s not generally too much to eat at that house, and they’ll want the things,” he said.

There was another struggle with the Cayuse, which appeared reluctant to face a treacherous ascent whose slope was somewhat steeper than the pitch of an average roof, but once more Alton conquered, and they dragged the beasts up, and then floundered on doggedly beside them, seeing nothing but a dim pine or two through the snow.  Now and then there was a rattle and a rush beneath them, followed by a faint splash, and Seaforth shivered a little, knowing that the shingle they dislodged had plunged into a lonely lake lying far below.  Still Alton said nothing, but floundered on, apparently as cheerfully as though he would be well paid for the risk he ran, until he crawled down into the sliding whiteness, when a hide strip burst and some of Townshead’s packages were scattered about the face of a precipitous declivity.

Seaforth held his breath a moment as, gripping the bridle of a trembling beast, he watched him until the dim moving figure sank into the snow.  He could hear the wash of the unfrozen lake, and knew there was no foothold on the slippery rock which sloped almost sheer to it through the darkness close beneath.  Then a voice came up, “Wasn’t there a dry goods package of some kind, Charley?”

“There was,” shouted Seaforth.  “But come up with what you’ve got, and leave it.”

A faint laugh answered him, and through the moaning of the pines he caught the words, “If it’s not over the edge here, I’m going to get the thing.”

Seaforth said nothing further.  He knew his comrade too well, and could picture him clinging by hand and heel as he crawled along the brink of the declivity with the lake below, and gasped from relief when once more a dim whitened object lurched up out of the snow.

“Got them all,” said Alton cheerfully.  “That last one was just on the edge, and it took some thinking before I could get at it.  Still, I guessed it was some kind of dress stuff for the girl, and if we lost it it might be a long while before she got another.”