e's always striking for something better."

Seaforth laughed. "You are trying to get at something, as usual," said
he.

"Yes," said Alton gravely. "I generally am. Well, I can see what we
don't want of these forests sailing sawn up to China, and this river
sprinkled with sawmills and wood-pulp factories. Then I can hear the
big dynamoes humming, and the thump of the mine stamps run with the
current the men who put them down will get for nothing. What we're
wasting round Somasco is going to feed ten thousand people by and by."

"It's a big idea," said Seaforth reflectively. "Still, I don't know
that if it were ever put through the place would look any prettier--and
the question is, who's going to set the whole thing running?"

"God knows," said Alton gravely. "But somebody will, and if I live
long enough I'll make a shot at it. Oh, yes, it's very pretty as it
is, but the greatest thing in this world is man, and it was made as it
is for him to master."

"You have curious notions for a Canadian bush rancher," said Seaforth.
"You are, however, really an Englishman, aren't you?"

"No," said Alton grimly. "My father used to be, but he was too much of
my way of thinking and they fired him out of the country. It's a thing
I don't like to talk of, Charley, and just now I'm a low-down packer
hauling in a pile of truck I'll never get paid for. Steady, come up.
There's nothing going to hurt you, Julius Caesar."

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