The lashings, however, had not slackened, the cedar-bark was intact, and once more they took up their burden, while Seaforth could not remember how often they had rested when at last they came out upon a smooth strip of sloping rock close to the last of the portage. He was dragging a clogging weight of snow with him, and the white flakes were in his eyes, while now and then his breath failed him and he heard Okanagan growling hoarse and half-articulate expletives.
"You have got to hold out, Charley. There's the canoe below you," he said.
Seaforth braced himself for a last effort, and was never sure whether he or Okanagan stumbled first, but his feet slipped from under him and he fell upon Alton as Tom went down. Then the three slid together down the slope of rock, and fell heavily over the edge of it. Seaforth was partly dazed when Okanagan dragged him to his feet, but, he could see that Alton lay very still with his face awry and that there was consternation in the eyes of his comrade.
"Have we hurt you, Harry?" he said hoarsely.
Alton groaned a little, and his lips moved once or twice before
Seaforth caught any audible answer.
"I don't know that you did it, but I think that bone has gone," he said.
Okanagan, saying nothing, dropped on hands and knees, and while Alton groaned drew the bands tighter about the shattered cedar-bark. Then he rose up and looked at Seaforth, and the two stood silent for almost a minute with the snow whirling about them. There was something very like despair in Seaforth's eyes, and at last his comrade solemnly shook his fist at the forest.
"We have got to get him home straight off," he said. Seaforth did not ask how it was to be done when they had the range to cross, but as one dreaming laid hold of his comrade again, and floundered towards the canoe, which lay close by them now. He was still partly dazed when he took up the paddle and dimly saw the white pines sliding past through a haze of snow. Nor did he remember whether he or Okanagan set the tent up when they reached the island near the canon, but he was sitting inside it holding out a smoking can of tea to Alton when some time after darkness had closed down Tom came in. The snow had ceased in the meanwhile and a biting frost descended upon the valley through which the roar of the canon pulsed in long reverberations. Okanagan dropped the rifle he carried.
"I might have left the thing. The horse is dead," he said.
"Dead?" said Seaforth vacantly.