"You're right," said Andrew. "Besides, we must reach Graham's camp by to-morrow night." "Rough on you!" Carnally sympathized; "I haven't as big a stake." Nothing more was said while they rolled up their packs and set off grimly on the return trail. It had been dark for several hours the next night when Andrew wearily toiled up a long rise dotted with ragged spruces. He was hungry and very cold, though he panted with the exertion he was forced to make. There was no feeling in his feet, which were bound to big snow-shoes; his hands were powerless in his thick mittens, and he carried a light ax under his arm. Fortunately, the trail they had broken when coming out led straight up the rise, and Carnally pressed on in front, a gray shape outlined against the glitter of the snow. A half-moon hung above them in a cloudless sky, the frost was intense, and the white desolation lay wrapped in an impressive silence. Not a breath of wind stirred the tops of the spruces. Andrew's knees were giving way, and it seemed to him that the ascent they were laboriously mounting ran on for ever. He felt as if they had spent hours on it, though the frozen river at its foot was not far behind them. It was discouraging to fix his eyes on the black shape of a spruce ahead and see how slowly it grew nearer, but he felt unequal to contemplating the long trail to the summit, and he divided the distance into stages between tree and tree. At last they crossed the ridge and it was a relief to go downhill, though the spruces grew in thicker belts and there was half a mile of timber that they were forced to traverse in their moccasins. Fallen logs obstructed their passage, they plunged into tangles of blown-down branches, the snow was loose among the slender trunks and here and there they sank deep in it. Andrew was, however, consumed by an anxiety which would brook no delay, and when he had with difficulty replaced his snow-shoes he looked up at his companion. "We can't be far from camp?" he queried. "About three miles. We ought to see it when we're through the timber on the lower bench. Graham had wood enough to keep a good fire going." They pressed on, slipping down the steeper slopes, stumbling now and then, for both had regretted the necessity for leaving Graham alone, and at sunset they had seen the tracks of wolves. At last they plunged into a thick belt of spruce, where the trees were fairly large and there was not much fallen wood. Here and there a broad patch of moonlight glittered on the snow, confusing after the deep gloom, but the men could get through on their snow-shoes and avoid the trunks. They made good speed and when they broke out into the open Andrew stopped. Where a bright blaze should have marked Graham's fire there were only a few dying embers. The old man was nowhere to be seen. CHAPTER XVI THE CACHE The two prospectors forgot their weariness as they rushed to the dying fire. Carnally looked at the embers.