c Company, Hector," said the
prospector, and added aside to me, "I'm switching him off onto another
track. He's not cheerful on this one, and it's hardly fair play to listen
while he gives himself away."

Then we heard true stories of the old mad days, tales of grim burlesque
and sordid tragedy, which have never been written, and would not be
credited if they were, though their faint echoes may still be heard
between the Willow River and Ashcroft on the Thompson. Long afterward when
Harry and I discussed that experience he said, "Say little about Hector;
one must know these mountains well to understand him. I never saw any one
quite like him. He spoke like a Hebrew prophet, and we obeyed him as
though he were an emperor."

I slept in a splendid dry blanket under a bearskin which Hector spread
over me, and a dim light was in the eastern sky when the old man roused
me, saying, "If ye are stout at the paddle we'll try the river noo."

The others were growling drowsily as they rose to their feet, and I saw
that Ormond's gaze was fixed on me meaningly.

"You'll take me over now won't you, Lorimer?" he said as I bent over him.
"I feel that each hour is precious, and I'm longing above all things to
see Miss Carrington before I go. It is for her own sake partly."

I had forgotten our rivalry, and my voice was thick as I promised, while
Ormond sighed before he answered faintly:

"It might have been different, Lorimer. It's a pity we didn't know each
other better three years ago."

CHAPTER XXV

ORMOND'S LAST JOURNEY

"Launch her down handy. Bring the sick man along!" called some one
outside; and when we carried Ormond out I saw the others running a big
Siwash canoe down over the shingle, and the dark pines rising spires of
solid blackness against the coming day. It was bitterly cold, and white
mist hung about them, while huge masses of rock rose through the smoke of
the river, whose clamor filled all the hollow. None of us quite liked the
task before us, for man's vigor is never at its highest in the chilly
dawn; but I remembered Ormond's eagerness to continue the journey. So we
laid him gently on our blankets in the waist, and thrust out the long and
beautifully modeled craft, which was of the type that the coastwise Siwash
use when hunting the fur seals. I knelt grasping the forward paddle until
Hector, who held the steering blade, said: "If ye'll follow my bidding
I'll land ye safe across. Together! Lift her