"I can't quite tell when Tom and I will be back again." Then without another word he strode into the bush, and Seaforth, who first washed the breakfast-cans, proceeded to make a circuit of the camp.

He found the spot where the horses had been tethered with but little difficulty, and also the hole out of which one of them had drawn the picket-peg.

The redwoods which towered above him were vast of girth, and it would have needed a long halter to encompass them, while there was no branch for sixty feet or so.

Still, though he searched diligently, he did not find any print which might have been left by the paw of a panther, and regretted that there was a ridge of rock outcrop behind the camp.
"That beast was hungry, or he wouldn't have come so near," he said.
It was near dusk when Alton came back leading one weary horse, and darkness had closed down before Tom of Okanagan strode in with nothing but the pack-rope he had set out with.

Seaforth had supper ready, and no questions were asked until they had eaten.