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 big pile of wet green twigs, Harry."
Alton smiled curiously. "You made one fire?"
"Yes," said Seaforth, wondering. "We don't usually make two."
His sight was not equal to his comrade's, but he could see a smear of blue vapour curl athwart the pines, for he had banked the fire with wet fuel, so that it should smoke all day in case Tom of Okanagan had overtaken the horse and was following their trail.
"Well," said Alton dryly, "there is another one."
Seaforth swept his gaze twice across the valley before he saw anything beyond the crowded pines, and then for a moment he caught sight of a second faint streak athwart their sombreness. It was a mere film that vanished and rose again, illusory and almost imperceptible, but for some reason it troubled him.