They relashed the packages and went on again, floundering through steadily deepening snow, until once more the roar of water met them as they dipped into a hollow.  It grew louder rapidly, and presently Alton pulled the Cayuse up on the brink of a river.  It came down frothing out of a haze of sliding snow, tumbling with a hoarse growl about the great dim boulders, whirled and tossed in a white confusion down the wild race of a rapid, and was lost again.  How far the other bank was there was nothing to show, for even the scattered pines behind the men were hidden now, and Seaforth stared at the tumult of froth before him very dubiously.

“She’s pretty full to-night,” he said.  “It has got to be attempted, but I’m not quite sure how we’re going through.”

Alton laughed a little, and brought his hand down on the Cayuse pony’s flank.  “Well, if you’ll come along behind me you will see,” said he.

Seaforth was waist-deep next minute, and the water was horribly cold.  Then he was washed against a boulder, and fancied that one of the pack-beasts kicked him in its floundering.  In any case one knee seemed to grow suddenly useless, but he was not very sure of anything just then, for a burst of spray filled his eyes, and the bottom appeared to slip from under him.  He found foothold again in a moment or two, and dimly saw Alton’s head and shoulders above the back of a plunging beast, while another was apparently swimming somewhere between them.  Then the one Seaforth led stumbled, and they went away down stream together, clawing for a foothold with the shingle slipping under them, until there was a thud as they brought up against another boulder.  As he was not sensible of any especially painful blow Seaforth decided that it was the pony which had struck the rock, and had just come to this decision when his feet were swept from under him, and, still clinging to the bridle, he was pressed against the stone while the river frothed and roared about him.

Once more he felt that it was horribly cold, and flung a wet arm about the rock, but the power seemed to go out of him, and he wondered vacantly whether the pony would be able to extricate itself and him.  It floundered spasmodically for a while, and then lay still.  How long this continued Seaforth did not know, but it was more than twelve hours since he had left Somasco, and he had plodded up and down steep hillsides, over rock and boulder, and through deep mire and snow, most of the time, while there are limits to the domination the will of any man may exercise over his worn-out body.