After a time Deering stopped and looked about. The stones on the river
bank were large and sharp, the night was dark, and his load embarrassed
him. In the distance, he saw a small red fire; a dim light marked the
post office, and the reflections from the blast-lamp quivered behind the
trees. Deering got his breath and braced up.
Born in the bush, he had known poverty and stern physical toil. He was a
good mountaineer, but he admitted that his two hundred pounds was
something of a load to carry across icy rocks. Then he had, for the most
part, lived extravagantly at fashionable hotels, and his big muscles
were soft; but this was not all. The distant lights stood for human
society and civilization. Deering was very human and fought against an
atavistic shrinking from the dark and loneliness. Moreover, he knew the
wilds. For all that, he meant to conquer his shrinking.
He admitted that he was perhaps a romantic sentimentalist and his
adventure did not harmonize with his occupation. Sometimes, however, one
was not logical and not long since he would have plunged down the rocks
but for Jimmy's pluck. Besides he saw Stannard had used him to entangle
the lad. Deering had his rude code, but Stannard had none. He was cold
and calculating, and Deering thought he meant to carry out the plan he
tried before when he sent Jimmy over the neck. Although Deering did not
like the job, he meant to baffle him.
In the meantime, all was quiet but for the turmoil of the river a few
yards off. Dark pines occupied the narrow level belt by the track, and
on the other side vague blurred rocks went up. Thin mist drifted about,
and the line, running downhill, melted into the gloom. The trooper was
at the station and Deering imagined nobody was about.
"The stones are sharp and slippery," he said. "We'll take the track and
push on for the section-hut."
They got on the line, but did not progress fast. The gravel ballast was
large and hurt their feet; the ties were not evenly spaced. Sometimes
Deering stepped on the timber and sometimes on the loose stones. Then
numerous ravines pierced the rocks, and although the construction gangs
had begun to fill up the chasms, for the most part wooden trestles
spanned the gaps. To cross an open-work trestle in the dark is awkward,
and when Deering balanced on a narrow tie and looked for the next, he
sweated and breathed hard. On one trestle he stopped. Sixty feet below
him, he saw the foam of an angry torrent; the next tie was some distance
off, and the wood sparkled with frost.
In a sense, his adventure was ridiculous. When he used the railroad he
went on board a first-class car and checked his baggage. Now he stumbled
over the ballast and carried on his back all he could not go without. In
the meantime, however, he must cross the trestle, and he trusted his
luck and jumped.
He got across and after three or four hours they reached the
section-shack. Graham was in bed, but he got up and told them all they
wanted to know. Three policemen with an Indian and a pack-horse had come
down the track and Graham imagined they had found the entrance to
Jimmy's valley. He reckoned they would send back the Indian and the
horse when they took the rocks, but the fellow had not yet returned.
Peter was puzzled about the Indian.
"They didn't hire him up at the station," he remarked. "Looks as if
they'd fixed it for him to meet them."
"It looks as if they'd made their plans and their plans were pretty
good," said Deering. "However, since they've got a loaded horse, they
can't shove on fast. How long was the other outfit in front?"
Graham told him and for a few moments Deering pondered. Then he said,
"It's awkward! Stannard knows where Jimmy is, and he'll hit up the pace.
I reckon the police don't know and must look for his tracks. If we
hustle, we'll run up against the gang."
The difficulty was obvious and Peter frowned.
"We might get by their camp in the dark. We'd see the fire."
"I doubt," Deering rejoined. "If the boys make a fire, they'll make it
where the light is hid. They don't want to put Jimmy wise."
"Well?" said Peter. "What is your plan?"
Deering laughed, a noisy laugh, for now he had started, his hesitation
vanished.
"We'll trust our luck and shove ahead. In the morning we'll get up the
rocks and look about. I've brought my glasses. Let's get going."
Graham gave them directions and when they climbed a steep hill they
found the valley. The ground was broken and in places covered by tangled
brush, but they made progress and at daybreak labored across the snow to
the top of a spur. Deering sat on his pack and used his prismatic
glasses.
Gray cloud floated about the mountain slopes, but the high peaks were
sharp and began to shine in the rising sun. Some were rose-pink and some
were yellow; the hollows between their broken tops were gray and blue. A
map of the mountains occupied a wall of the hotel rotunda, and Deering,
using his glasses, imagined it roughly accurate.
"I expect the blue gap is the head of the valley," he remarked and when
Peter nodded resumed: "We'll allow Stannard joined Jimmy ahead of the
police and took him along. We have got to hit their line and this is not
as hard as it looks. They can't steer for the shoulder of the big peak;
the rocks won't go and I see an ugly ice-fall on the glacier. I reckon
I'd head back, obliquely, for the _col_, up the long _arrete_."
"I don't use no _habitant_ French," Peter observed.
"Oh, well. Our clubmen have begun to use the tourists' talk," said
Deering and gave Peter the glasses. "Anyway, you see the ridge that runs
up to the neck?"
Peter studied the ridge. He had hunted mountain sheep and imagined sun
and frost had worn the rocks to something like a knife-edge. In places,
sharp pinnacles broke the top, and he thought it significant that for
the most part the snow did not lie. The shadow behind the top, no doubt,
marked a great precipitous gulf, but the farther end of the ridge
touched a white hollow between two peaks. If one could get across, one
might find a glacier going down the other side.
"I reckon your friends couldn't make it between sun-up and dark," he
said. "Anyhow, the police would see them on the rocks."
"Stannard might hit a line a few yards below the top, but I imagine the
clouds will soon roll up. Give me the glasses. I want to locate a gully
that goes for some distance up the ridge."
Peter saw his object. The long ridge ran back obliquely from farther up
the valley and to get up by the line Deering marked would cut out the
corner. Moreover Peter imagined the police had reached Jimmy's hut, and
if they found the tracks of Stannard's party, they would climb the ridge
from the other end. In consequence, Deering's going up the gully would
put him in front.
"I guess we'll start. When we noon we'll be nearer, and if the mist's
not thick, you can look for the line you want."
They went down the hill, and by and by the cloud rolled up the slope,
and rocks and peaks were lost in gloom. Then Deering began to get tired,
for although there was no snow at the bottom of the valley, the ground
was rough. After an hour or two he pushed into the timber and stopped.
"Perhaps it's risky, but I've got to eat and take a rest," he said. "The
trees are pretty thick, and if the smoke goes up, the hill's a good
background."
They cooked some food and then sat by the fire. Not far off the belt of
trees was broken, and presently Deering saw the cloud had got thin and
begun to roll back, up the mountains. Vague rocks pierced the vapor and
grew distinct; the mist trailed away from battered trees and slanted
fields of snow. For a time it clung about the high dark precipices, and
then one saw the snow-packed gullies seam the crags like marble veins. A
faint light pierced the vapor, and the broken top of the ridge began to
cut the background.
Deering pulled out his glasses and went to the opening in the wood. The
light was getting stronger, but he did not think the cloud would
altogether melt and he must search the rocks while search was possible.
By and by a beam touched the ridge and the snow glimmered like pale gold
against blue shadow. Above the shadow were broken peaks, but the belt of
dark blue indicated a gap and Deering, noting the strong color, thought
the gap profound.
The landscape, lighted by the unsteady beam, was strangely beautiful.
The pale illumination did not travel far and the rocks outside its reach
owed something of their mysterious grandeur to the contrast. Deering,
however, was not romantic and thought he saw a line, across a steep,
white slope and up a buttress, to the ridge. If he could get up, he
would cut Stannard's track and imagined he would not be much behind the
party.
He concentrated on the ridge. The slope along the top was not even but
went up, rather like a terraced walk. Rocky buttresses supported the
terraces, and, for the most part, the stones were free from snow;
Deering knew this indicated a very steep pitch. One buttress was marked
by a broad white band, and when he rubbed the glasses he thought he saw
on the snow a small object he had not remarked before. The object moved,
and calling Peter, he gave him the glasses.
"What's that? A cinnamon?"
"The bears have come down," said Peter. "The big-horn have gone for the
low benches. I guess the thing's a man."
Deering agreed and waited. Perhaps it was strange, but of all the
animals, civilized man alone was willing to front the cold on the
daunting heights. The ridge, outlined against a vague background of
majestic peaks, looked as remote as another world. To imagine flesh and
blood could reach it was hard, but Deering meant to try and knew
Stannard's calculating steadiness. If one went carefully, studying the
obstacles, and using the ax and rope--
"It's a man all right. I see another," said Jardine and gave Deering the
glasses. Deering saw three men. They advanced very slowly, and he
pictured their cutting steps before they moved. One crossed the
snow-belt and vanished. When he was anchored in the rocks he would
steady his companions. Deering knew it was Stannard, for Stannard would
not trust a poor guide at a spot like that. The others, perhaps, were
Dillon and Stevens. Then he saw two more; Gillane, the packer, and
Jimmy. Anyhow, Stannard had started with three companions and now he had
four. Deering knew all he wanted to know.
He watched the party, strung out at even distances, move across the
white band; and then the figures melted. They had not reached the other
side, but when he rubbed his glasses they were gone. The peaks in the
background vanished, the ridge got indistinct, and the black pines on
the lower snow-fields faded, as if a curtain were drawn across the
picture.
Deering shut his glasses and went for his pack. The mist was not thick
and he knew his line to the buttress.
"Put out the fire and let's get off," he said.
"You can't cross the ridge in the dark and the cold's going to be
fierce," Peter remarked.
"That is so. I doubt if Stannard can make the neck, but if he gets
there, he must wait for morning. Maybe we'll find a hole in the rocks."
Peter said nothing. He had engaged to go where the other went and must
try to make good, although the road was daunting. In thick timber, a
bushman can front biting cold; but on the high, icy rocks one could not
make camp and light a fire. If their luck were very good, they might
find a hole behind a stone, in which they must wait for daybreak and try
not to freeze.
He put out the fire and when they went through the wood pondered
gloomily. To reach the neck would cost them much; but to get there was
not all. They must get down on the other side, and, for the most part,
the mountain tops were tremendous precipices. Peter rather thought the
neck opened on a glacier, but sometimes a glacier is broken by awkward
ice-falls.
All the same, Peter set his mouth and pushed ahead. In the valley, he
could hit up the pace for Deering, but he imagined to follow the big
fellow on the rocks was another thing. When a bushman took the rocks he
went to shoot big-horn and bear. The mountain clubmen studied climbing
as one studies the ball-game.