“Come along, old chap, we’ve a long road to go,” said Harrington, as he led the way.
“Yes,” said Portway beneath his breath, as, instead of walking boldly and uprightly, he seemed to slouch along behind his companion.
The climb was so stiff, and in places so dangerous, that for some time after no word was spoken. But at last they reached a shelf on the mountain, running along by a profound ravine, down to the bottom of which it was possible to climb, but the task was risky.
“Bad to tumble here, Dan,” said Harrington suddenly.
“Yes,” said the other, with an involuntary shiver, and he drew nearer to his companion, who suddenly stopped at a projecting portion of the shelf, and, shading his eyes, began to scan the prospect toward where, in a perfect chaos of rocks, the sinking sun was gilding the glorious scene.
“We can easily get round to camp this way,” said Harrington, after a few moments, and he took a step or two onward. “Mind how you come, Dan. Hist! No gammon. Bears, by Jove?”
He pointed to a spot not a dozen yards away, where there were unmistakable traces of a grizzly having made his lair, and dragging round the little glass which hung from his shoulder, he adjusted it as he rested his rifle against the rock, raised it to his eyes, and began to search the hills and hollows for the game they sought.
He was leaning quite over the gulch, which fell almost perpendicularly beneath them, his back to Portway, who was behind, and who, acting upon the sudden impulse born of his cogitations while the other slept, suddenly raised his rifle with both hands back over his head, and drove the plated butt with all his force crash upon his companion’s head.
There was a wild cry, and the next moment Portway was leaning forward at the very edge of the precipice gazing down at the fallen body, which plunged and rolled, and then stopped upon a mass of rock, two hundred feet below, motionless.
Portway seemed as if turned to stone for the moment, then, rifle in hand, he ran back a dozen yards, and began to descend, slipping, leaping, and displaying wondrous activity in the perilous descent, till he reached the spot where George Harrington lay, and examined the inanimate form, seeing that the eyes were closed and that the blood was welling from a terrible gash over the eyes.