In front of him lay the wilderness, a trackless chaos of forest and rock and snow wherein he had to find the scar made by a stick of giant powder or the scratching of the shovel.

There were, however, points to guide the searcher, and Alton could deduce a good deal from each of them.

Jimmy the prospector had, it was evident, perished of hunger and exhaustion, for Alton had traced the last stages of his journey backwards through the snow, and the grim story of human endurance and anguish was plainly legible.

Here Jimmy had fallen, there lain still, and then dragged himself forward before he rose again, while the uneven footsteps had borne their own testimony.

Also the bag of specimens was heavy, and Alton decided that for a man in the last stages of exhaustion, the river had furnished the only road.