he drove it into the soil, and crawled on hands and knees into the fern so that Seaforth could only see his boots, and surmise by the rustling that he was groping amidst the withered fronds.  Once he caught a muffled expletive, after which the rustling ceased awhile, but it commenced again, and Seaforth wondered the more when Okanagan crawled out of the opposite side of the thicket, and set up a second stick in line with the other.  He had not the faintest notion of what his companion could be doing.

“Are you finding anything down there, Tom?” he said.  Okanagan rose up with a little grim laugh.  “Thorns,” he said.  “There’s a condemned big one in my thumb.”

Seaforth stared at him with a vague suspicion that the hardships of the forced march they had made had left their mark upon his comrade, though he had never noticed any signs of mental weakness in the big axeman before.

“Aren’t there plenty to be picked up in this country without looking for them?” he said.

Okanagan glanced at him with a little twinkle which was not altogether mirthful in his eyes.  “Oh, yes.  More than I’ve any use for.  You were trying to figure on what I was after?  The thing’s quite as easy as trailing a deer.”

“I was,” said Seaforth dryly, and Okanagan approaching him dropped a big hand upon his shoulder.

“Come right along, and I’ll show you,” said he.

Seaforth followed him, until he stopped by the fir he had worked his alignment from, where he picked up a spent cartridge and pointed to a mark in the snow.

“Nothing particular about that, anyway, a forty-four Winchester,” he said.  “The fellow had long boots on with one heel down, and he stood right here waiting for Harry.  Harry was coming along yonder with the deer, forty yards I make it, and he jumped when the fellow started shooting.”

“You think he did?” said Seaforth, slightly bewildered, and Okanagan laughed.

“No, sir, I’m sure,” he said.  “I could show you where his heels went in if it would do you any good.  Harry was coming along quick as he could, thinking about his supper, and the other fellow was crouching here, clawing his rifle and waiting until he came into the moonlight.”

The blood surged into Seaforth’s forehead, and he clenched one hand.  “The condemned villain!  It was devilish,” he said.

Okanagan nodded gravely, and his rugged face was stern.

“Oh, yes, but, slinging names at him’s not much use,” he said.  “Well, I feel it in me that we’re going to see more of that man by and by, and that’s just why I’m working up the whole thing from the beginning.  Now I’ll show you some more of it.”

They floundered through one or two thickets until Okanagan stopped again, and pointed to the red smear upon the fern and withered pine-needles.  “That’s where Harry lay and waited for him,” he said.  “He was bleeding pretty bad, but he knew the other fellow meant to finish him.”