HALLAM TRIES AGAIN There was frost in the valley when one clear morning Alton lay partly dressed in a big chair beside the stove at Somasco ranch.

Outside the snow lay white on the clearing, and the great pines rose above it sombre and motionless under the sunlight that had no warmth in it, while the peaks beyond them shone with a silvery lustre against the cloudless blue.

It was a day to set the blood stirring and rouse the vigour of the strong, and Alton felt the effect of it as he lay listening to the rhythmic humming of the saws.

The sound spoke of activity, and raising himself a trifle in his chair he glanced at his partner with a faint sparkle in his eye.
"It's good to feel alive again," he said.
Seaforth's smile was somewhat forced, for he had reason for dreading the moment when his comrade would take an interest in the affairs of life again.

There was something that Alton must know, and glancing at his hollow face he shrank from telling him.
The struggle had been a long one, for fever had once more seized Alton when he was apparently on the way to recovery, and there had been times when it seemed to Seaforth that two angels kept the long night watches with him beside his comrade's bed.