"And most half-frozen.

It was that cold there was ice in the big rapid, and I hadn't had much to eat for several days." Seaforth shivered again, as he pictured that strange encounter between the dead and the living.

Jimmy the prospector, having taken his secret with him to a region where silver is valueless, had sat within a few paces from where he stood with his fingers clenched upon the bag, and an awful disregard of the rights of the woman he had left behind in his frozen face.

Seaforth could also picture his comrade stooping over him with averted eyes, but swift, resolute movements, for when there was work to be done Alton of Somasco was not the man to turn aside.
"It must have been a trifle horrible," he said.
Alton's eyes closed a little.

"It wasn't nice.