ssive stillness across which the jingle of the
bridle rang stridently when Alton pulled the horse up near the foremost
of the trees.

"This," he said softly, "is where I found Jimmy. He was sitting there
with his rifle on his knee, looking straight at me, as though there
were lots of things he could tell me."

Seaforth shivered a little. "He had the specimens with him?"

Alton nodded. "Yes," he said. "He had his grip right on the deerhide
bag, as though he didn't want to let me have them, and I had to think
of Mrs. Jimmy while I took them from him. It didn't seem quite fair of
Jimmy, because they haven't much use for silver in the country the long
trail leads to."

Seaforth glanced down into the great hollow that fell away beneath
them, and up at the glittering snow. "You were alone, I think?"

"I was," said Alton grimly. "And most half-frozen. It was that cold
there was ice in the big rapid, and I hadn't had much to eat for
several days."

Seaforth shivered again, as he pictured that strange encounter between
the dead and the living. Jimmy the prospector, having taken his secret
with him to a region where silver is valueless, had sat within a few
paces from where he stood with his fingers clenched upon the bag, and
an awful disregard of the rights of the woman he had left behind in his
frozen face. Seaforth could also picture his comrade stooping over him
with averted eyes, but swift, resolute movements, for when there was
work to be done Alton of Somasco was not the man to turn aside.

"It must have been a trifle horrible," he said.

Alton's eyes closed a little. "It wasn't nice. Still, there was Mrs.
Jimmy working down at the store, and that secret belonged to her."

He stopped abruptly with a little gesture as of one shaking off a
painful memory, and looked down across the climbing pines to the lake
in the hollow behind them. It still shone steelily, and apparently not
very far away, though it had cost the men strenuous toil all day to
traverse the distance that divided them from it. Seaforth, who watched
him, noticed something unusual in his attitude, for his comrade stood
very still with eyes that never for a moment wavered from one point in
the valley.

"Do you see anything down there?" he said.

"Yes," said Alton grimly. "I see smoke."

"There is nothing astonishing in that," said Seaforth. "I damped down
the bark well, and raked up the soil to shut off the draught. There
was a bi