The bleak, slow dawn found Marjorie intently busy. She had made up the
fire, boiled water and washed and dressed Trafford's wounds, and made
another soup of lynx. But Trafford had weakened in the night, the stuff
nauseated him, he refused it and tried to smoke and was sick, and then
sat back rather despairfully after a second attempt to persuade her to
leave him there to die. This failure of his spirit distressed her and a
little astonished her, but it only made her more resolute to go through
with her work. She had awakened cold, stiff and weary, but her fatigue
vanished with movement; she toiled for an hour replenishing her pile of
fuel, made up the fire, put his gun ready to his hand, kissed him,
abused him lovingly for the trouble he gave her until his poor torn face
lit in response, and then parting on a note of cheerful confidence set
out to return to the hut. She found the way not altogether easy to make
out, wind and snow had left scarcely a trace of their tracks, and her
mind was full of the stores she must bring and the possibility of moving
him nearer to the hut. She was startled to see by the fresh, deep spoor
along the ridge how near the wolf had dared approach them in the
darkness....
Ever and again Marjorie had to halt and look back to get her direction
right. As it was she came through the willow scrub nearly half a mile
above the hut, and had to follow the steep bank of the frozen river
down. At one place she nearly slipped upon an icy slope of rock.
One possibility she did not dare to think of during that time; a
blizzard now would cut her off absolutely from any return to Trafford.
Short of that she believed she could get through.
Her quick mind was full of all she had to do. At first she had thought
chiefly of his immediate necessities, of food and some sort of shelter.
She had got a list of things in her head--meat extract, bandages,
corrosive sublimate by way of antiseptic, brandy, a tin of beef, some
bread and so forth; she went over that several times to be sure of it,
and then for a time she puzzled about a tent. She thought she could
manage a bale of blankets on her back, and that she could rig a sleeping
tent for herself and Trafford with one and some bent sticks. The big
tent would be too much to strike and shift. And then her mind went on to
a bolder enterprise, which was to get him home. The nearer she could
bring him to the log hut, the nearer they would be to supplies. She cast
about for some sort of sledge. The snow was too soft and broken for
runners, especially among the trees, but if she could get a flat of
smooth wood she thought she might be able to drag him. She decided to
try the side of her bunk. She could easily get that off. She would have,
of course, to run it edgewise through the thickets and across the
ravine, but after that she would have almost clear going until she
reached the steep place of broken rocks within two hundred yards of him.
The idea of a sledge grew upon her, and she planned to nail a rope along
the edge and make a kind of harness for herself.
She found the camping-place piled high with drifted snow, which had
invaded tent and hut, and that some beast, a wolverine she guessed, had
been into the hut, devoured every candle-end and the uppers of
Trafford's well-greased second boots, and had then gone to the corner of
the store shed and clambered up to the stores. She made no account of
its depredations there, but set herself to make a sledge and get her
supplies together. There was a gleam of sunshine, but she did not like
the look of the sky, and she was horribly afraid of what might be
happening to Trafford. She carried her stuff through the wood and across
the ravine, and returned for her improvised sledge. She was still
struggling with that among the trees when it began to snow again.
It was hard then not to be frantic in her efforts. As it was, she packed
her stuff so loosely on the planking that she had to repack it, and she
started without putting on her snowshoes, and floundered fifty yards
before she discovered that omission. The snow was now falling fast,
darkling the sky and hiding everything but objects close at hand, and
she had to use all her wits to determine her direction; she knew she
must go down a long slope and then up to the ridge, and it came to her
as a happy inspiration that if she bore to the left she might strike
some recognizable vestige of her morning's trail. She had read of people
walking in circles when they have no light or guidance, and that
troubled her until she bethought herself of the little compass on her
watch chain. By that she kept her direction. She wished very much she
had timed herself across the waste, so that she could tell when she
approached the ridge.
Soon her back and shoulders were aching violently, and the rope across
her chest was tugging like some evil-tempered thing. But she did not
dare to rest. The snow was now falling thick and fast, the flakes traced
white spirals and made her head spin, so that she was constantly falling
away to the south-westward and then correcting herself by the compass.
She tried to think how this zig-zagging might affect her course, but the
snow whirls confused her mind and a growing anxiety would not let her
pause to think. She felt blinded; it seemed to be snowing inside her
eyes so that she wanted to rub them. Soon the ground must rise to the
ridge, she told herself; it must surely rise. Then the sledge came
bumping at her heels and she perceived she was going down hill. She
consulted the compass, and she found she was facing south. She turned
sharply to the right again. The snowfall became a noiseless, pitiless
torture to sight and mind.
The sledge behind her struggled to hold her back, and the snow balled
under her snowshoes. She wanted to stop and rest, take thought, sit for
a moment. She struggled with herself and kept on. She tried walking
with shut eyes, and tripped and came near sprawling. "Oh God!" she
cried, "oh God!" too stupefied for more articulate prayers.
Would the rise of the ground to the ribs of rock never come?
A figure, black and erect, stood in front of her suddenly, and beyond
appeared a group of black, straight antagonists. She staggered on
towards them, gripping her rifle with some muddled idea of defence, and
in another moment she was brushing against the branches of a stunted
fir, which shed thick lumps of snow upon her feet. What trees were
these? Had she ever passed any trees? No! There were no trees on her way
to Trafford....
She began whimpering like a tormented child. But even as she wept she
turned her sledge about to follow the edge of the wood. She was too much
downhill, she thought and she must bear up again.
She left the trees behind, made an angle uphill to the right, and was
presently among trees again. Again she left them and again came back to
them. She screamed with anger at them and twitched her sledge away. She
wiped at the snowstorm with her arm as though she would wipe it away.
She wanted to stamp on the universe....
And she ached, she ached....
Something caught her eye ahead, something that gleamed; it was exactly
like a long, bare rather pinkish bone standing erect on the ground. Just
because it was strange and queer she ran forward to it. Then as she came
nearer she perceived it was a streak of barked trunk; a branch had been
torn off a pine tree and the bark stripped down to the root. And then
her foot hit against a freshly hewn stump, and then came another, poking
its pinkish wounds above the snow. And there were chips! This filled
her with wonder. Some one had been cutting wood! There must be Indians
or trappers near, she thought, and then realized the wood-cutter could
be none other than herself.
She turned to the right and saw the rocks rising steeply close at hand.
"Oh Rag!" she cried, and fired her rifle in the air.
Ten seconds, twenty seconds, and then so loud and near it amazed her,
came his answering shot. It sounded like the hillside bursting.
In another moment she had discovered the trail she had made overnight
and that morning by dragging firewood. It was now a shallow soft white
trench. Instantly her despair and fatigue had gone from her. Should she
take a load of wood with her? she asked herself, in addition to the
weight behind her, and had a better idea. She would unload and pile her
stuff here, and bring him down on the sledge closer to the wood. She
looked about and saw two rocks that diverged with a space between. She
flashed schemes. She would trample the snow hard and flat, put her
sledge on it, pile boughs and make a canopy of blanket overhead and
behind. Then a fire in front.
She saw her camp admirable. She tossed her provisions down and ran up
the broad windings of her pine-tree trail to Trafford, with the unloaded
sledge bumping behind her. She ran as lightly as though she had done
nothing that day.
She found him markedly recovered, weak and quiet, with snow drifting
over his feet, his rifle across his knees, and his pipe alight. "Back
already," he said, "but----"