It was set and grey, but it went suddenly awry into the grotesque semblance of a smile.
"Tom never was in a hurry.

It's rough on you," he said.

Still, Seaforth, who had once held his own with men and women in quick retort and graceful badinage in England, did not answer, but only pressed the hard fingers that now lay somewhat limply in his palm and wondered vaguely whether the ordeal would never be over.

It was only then he realized to the full all that Alton had been to him since the day he limped, ragged and very hungry, into a little mining camp.

His friends in the old country had turned their backs on him, and Seaforth, who had been hopeless and desperate then, knew that he owed a good deal more than material prosperity to Alton of Somasco.
"Tom," he said hoarsely, "I think we're ready." Okanagan said nothing, but stooped again, and Seaforth tightening his grasp of the contracting fingers, heard the sound of uneven breathing through the thud of snow upon the tent.