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"You can understand what I told you?" A slow glow crept into Alton's eyes. "Oh, yes, it's all quite plain," he said. "When you find a mineral claim you have got to record it in fifteen days, or it goes back to the Crown, and I couldn't do that, you see, because I was lying for weeks at Somasco.
Hallam made a gesture of impatience. "Then you can let him wait," he said. "This deal will pay you better. You can put your own price on it." Alton's eyelids came down a little, and the stranger seemed to find his glance disconcerting. "You don't seem to understand. I promised the other man to bring up his things," he said.
It was half an hour before he went on again with his garments ensanguined as the result of Alton's treatment with the knife, and he gasped with relief when after a march of four miles, which occupied most of what was left of the day, they came out into the more open spaces of a big brulee.
"There," said Miss Deringham, instinctively clenching her bridle. "Surely the girl cannot be going to try it." "Good Lord!" said Seaforth under his breath, and the second figure rushed with streaming skirt and hair at the gap cleared by Alton's passage. Then the man turned his head, and it was a moment before he looked round again, very white in face. "Thank Heaven!" he said hoarsely.
There was a horrible cramp in her shoulder, and to lessen it she moved a trifle so that her arm rested on the pillow. That was easier, and while she struggled with her weariness her head followed it, until it sank down close by Alton's shoulder. Then for five minutes she fought with her weakness, and was vanquished, for her head settled lower into its resting place, and her eyes closed.
Of course, if you had any knowledge of business I could make it more clear to you, but I can only tell you that I am anxious about Alton's safety for my own sake as well as his." Alice Deringham turned towards him with a trace of impatience. "We may as well be honest, and I fancy Mr. Alton is used to risks," she said quietly.
He found foothold again in a moment or two, and dimly saw Alton's head and shoulders above the back of a plunging beast, while another was apparently swimming somewhere between them. Then the one Seaforth led stumbled, and they went away down stream together, clawing for a foothold with the shingle slipping under them, until there was a thud as they brought up against another boulder.
Alton's hat was capacious, and he had worn it during the two years which had elapsed since his last visit to Vancouver, but it did not seem to occur to him that it was in any way an unusual receptacle for sugar. His companion, however, laughed a little as he stirred the sticky mass round with his wet fingers. "There is no use giving him our tobacco and matches in," said he.
Alton's eyes closed a trifle, and though he made no other sign Forel saw that the shot had reached its mark. "Then," he said slowly, "I would rather you didn't mention it. Hallam is scarcely likely to venture back again." "No," said Forel.
Alton's fingers closed suddenly as he looked down on the gleaming hair and whiteness of the neck beneath it, for the girl's face had been turned from him. "No," he said slowly. "I wanted so much, you see." "And yet you once seemed to think there was nothing impossible to the man who was resolute enough and I fancied you were right," said the girl.
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