At times he stumbled beside him, and then went on and sat down gasping to wait until his comrade came up with him again.

It was a week since they had made more than half a meal, and much longer since they had eaten a sufficient one.

They were famishing, worn-out, and a trifle fanciful, while the light was dying fast and a great wall of mountains, beyond which the cache lay, still rose in front of them.
Dusk crept up from the valley and overtook them as they climbed, then passed ahead and blotted out the battalions of somber pines.

The little breeze that had sighed among the latter died away, and the hoarse clamor of the creek intensified the deep silence that wrapped dusky hillside and lonely valley.

Then a half-moon sailed out above the dim white peaks, and its pale radiance gleamed on frothing water and dripping stone, and showed the two men still climbing.