the line was not where he had last seen it, and he went down headlong,
while the rifle rolled away from him. Just there, there was a rush and
a drumming of hoofs, and before Alton could pick himself up the horses
were sweeping in a panic through the shadowy bush.

"Anything the worse, Harry?" said Seaforth. "We had better get off at
once while there's the sound to guide us."

Alton laughed softly, as he did now and then when he might have been
disconcerted. "I can't beat a Cayuse, Charley, and I don't think
you'll hear them very long," he said.

Tom of Okanagan grunted approval, and the three stood still, until the
drumming of hoofs was lost in the silence of the bush.

"They're gone," said Seaforth. "Do you mean to do nothing?"

"Yes," said Alton. "I am going to stop right where I am until there's
light enough to trail them by. Do you know anything better, Tom?"

"No," said the man from Okanagan. "Still, I'm not quite as good at
thinking just now as I would like to be. The last time I felt like
this was when Siwash Bob took the back of the axe to me. I figure that
was a panther."

"Yes," said Alton; "it was a panther."

"Well," said Okanagan, "did you ever hear of one that went for a horse
close up with a tent before?"

"I have," said Alton, "seen a panther that turned on a man who wanted
to get a shot at it in the undergrowth."

"Oh, yes," said Okanagan. "He'd got something he'd caught for dinner
in the bushes, but it's kind of curious that beasts come round and howl
at us. Anyway, we can't find out nothing until the daylight comes."

They crawled back into the tent, and it was characteristic of them that
although the loss of the horses might traverse all their plans they
went to sleep again, and awakened as the beasts do, instinctively, when
the first light crept over the shoulder of the hill. Ten minutes later
Alton had the fire lighted, and sat down beside it with the frypan in
his hand. The recovery of the horses was a question of importance, but
it might well entail a day's journey, and he knew that to commence it
without his breakfast would be distinctly unwise of him. Accordingly
he tranquilly held the pan, while as the mists melted and the awakening
earth put on shape and form there was unrolled before him a wondrous
transformation scene.

When he had last awakened the wilderness had lain formless, wrapped in
blackness, primitive and pagan. Now the great pines rising row and row
f