THE GAP IN THE RIDGE
The scanty supper was finished before the three men held a council.
"We'll have another search in the morning, but you can take it for
granted that there's no cache here," Carnally said grimly.
"Could Mappin have made a mistake about the place?" Graham suggested.
"No, sir! That's a sure thing. But wait a minute. I think I see!"
Carnally lighted his pipe before he resumed: "Now, you want to
remember that we're up against a clever man. He didn't mean us to find
the food but he'd see that there was a chance of our getting through
without it and try to fix things so Allinson wouldn't have much ground
for making trouble. So he sent the supplies up."
"Then where are they?" Andrew broke in.
"Let me finish. I guess there was nobody else about when you told him
where to make the cache?"
Andrew nodded, and Carnally went on:
"You said the east Whitefish, and he sent the truck to the west fork.
It's a point where one might go wrong, and he'll claim that he
misunderstood you and you didn't make your instructions clear."
"I believe you're right!" Andrew had a savage glitter in his eyes.
"But the brute's cold-blooded cunning is devilish! He meant to starve
us to death because I threatened his contract!"
"That's not all. Mappin's dirt mean, but I guess he has a stronger
count against you."
"Ah!" said Andrew sharply, as a light dawned on him. "I wonder whether
you have hit the mark?"
In spite of the peril to which he was exposed he felt a thrill of
satisfaction. It looked as if Mappin, whom he suspected of seeking
Geraldine's favor, had some ground for believing him a successful
rival. Perhaps the girl had inadvertently betrayed a preference for
him. Mappin would not be driven into a risky course by impulse; he
must have believed his jealousy well-founded. This was comforting; but
Andrew had now to consider how he and his comrades were to escape from
their difficulties.
"Couldn't we get across to the west fork?" he suggested.
"We'll try," said Carnally. "It's a rough bit of country."
"Very rough," Graham agreed. "A low range with steep rock on this side
runs through it. I've no doubt Mappin knew that when he decided to
make the cache on the other fork."
"Then suppose we can't get over?"
Carnally looked thoughtful.
"If that's so, we'll push on for the second cache."
They looked at him in astonishment and he smiled. "The cache is
there--somewhere about the neck you told him of--though I guess he'll
have had it put where we won't find it easily. Anyhow, it will have to
be found and, when it comes to bush work, my head's as good as
Mappin's."
Andrew made a gesture of assent. Apart from his knowledge of the
wilds, Carnally had shown a power of close and accurate reasoning
which had surprised him. Indeed, Andrew was inclined to think him a
match for Mappin all round, and was glad of it, because there was no
doubt that he needed a keen-witted supporter.
"There's another thing," Carnally remarked presently "Has it struck
you that Hathersage may have given the hog a hint?"
Andrew flushed.
"No," he said sternly. "It's unthinkable! I can't discuss the point."
"Oh, well," acquiesced Carnally. "Now that we've decided what to do,
we'd better get to sleep. We have to look for a way across the range
the first thing to-morrow."
At noon the next day Andrew stood, breathless, half-way up a gully
filled with hard snow. Walls of ice-glazed rock shut it in, but it led
straight up the face of a towering crag toward an opening high above.
Andrew carried a thick, sharp-pointed stick with which he had
laboriously broken holes for his feet, because soft moccasins are
treacherous things on a steep snow-slope. He and Carnally had spent
half an hour over the ascent, and Andrew, looking up with a sinking
heart, thought it would take them as long to reach the summit,
provided they could avoid slipping, which was doubtful.
The gully lay in shadow, a long, deep rent, widening toward the
bottom, in which the snow gleamed a soft blue-gray, though a ray of
sunlight struck the beetling crag so that it flashed with steely
brightness. Here and there a spur of rock broke the smooth surface and
offered a resting-place, but some of the spaces between them seemed
dangerously precipitous. Andrew, worn with hunger and fatigue, frowned
at the sight.
"This looked the quickest way up and we haven't much time to lose,"
he said. "I'll feel very savage if we don't get a clear view from the
top."
"You'll get that," replied Carnally, finding a precarious seat near
by. "Whether you'll see a way through the rocks on the other side or
not is another matter, and I'm doubtful. Better get a move on, hadn't
you?"
Andrew placed his foot in a hole he had made, but the snow broke as he
rested on it, and he slipped down several yards before the stick
brought him up. He shuddered as he glanced below, for it struck him
that had he slid a little farther he would not have stopped until he
reached the bottom.
"This is an abominable slope," he exclaimed. "I've been on worse in
Switzerland, but I had an ice-ax and wasn't half starved then.
However, we'll have another try."
He got up twenty yards, clawing at the snow, and then stopped for
breath, glancing ruefully at his mittens, which showed signs of
wearing through.
"It means frost-bitten hands if these things give out, and they won't
stand much more," he said. "The worst of it is that you think we'll
find we have wasted our labor when we get to the top. I believe I
could feel cheerful if I could see Mappin crawling up after us."
"Mappin has more sense. He stays in his office, which is how money is
made. You don't, as a rule, get much for doing this kind of thing.
Still, he has to take some chances, and one he didn't size up right is
going back on him. When I'm feeling tired and hungry I like to think
of my meeting with that man."
"When you're feeling tired and hungry!" Andrew exclaimed. "I feel both
all the time!"
"Well," returned Carnally, "what can you expect? If you will make
trouble instead of letting things alone, you must take the
consequences. Now, if you had been a sensible man and not worried
about shareholders you have never seen, you might have been sitting
down to your lunch at home. Think of it! A nice warm room, a butler,
or somebody of the kind, bringing you a menu as long as your hand. Put
you there right now, and you'd take the whole lot. Say, what do you
have as a rule?"
"Stop!" said Andrew. "It won't bear thinking of! I know what I'll get
for supper, and that's an inch or two of flinty bannock, burned black
outside."
It was surface jesting and forced upon them, because they would not
face the tragic possibilities of the situation before it was
necessary. It was easier to do what could be done with a laugh. Still,
they had not laughed much lately, until the imminence of disaster
braced them to it.
Changing places now and then to relieve the leader of the work of
breaking footholds, they reached the summit, and Andrew's heart sank
as he gazed at the landscape which stretched away before him. The air
was clear, bright sunshine glittered on the high rocks, but the snow
in the shadow was steeped in ethereal blue; dark spruces broke the
gleaming surface with a delicate intricacy of outline. The scene had a
wild grandeur, but from Andrew's point of view it was inexpressibly
discouraging. They had laboriously scaled the first and largest
rampart, but beyond it lay a series of lower ridges with rugged and
almost precipitous sides. The hollows, so far as he could see, were
filled with spruce muskeg--the small rotting trees falling across each
other with underbrush pushing up between. To traverse these places
would be a very difficult matter.
"It looks pretty bad," he said slowly. "Mappin knew his business when
he had the cache made on the wrong side of the range."
"He's smart," Carnally agreed. "A hard man to beat, and you want to
use a full-sized club when you stand up to him; but I guess he'd go
down if he got the right knock-out."
Andrew, tired and hungry, failed to see how the decisive blow could be
given: there did not seem to be much probability of his ever coming to
close quarters with his enemy. So far as his brief experience went,
injustice was singularly hard to vanquish and the reformer's path
rough.
"Couldn't we work around the hills to the other fork?" he asked.
"The grub would run out before we got there."
"I suppose we couldn't push straight across, leaving Graham until we
came back?"
"We might, if we had time enough. I believe there's forty miles of
this broken country. Look at it!"
Andrew had already done so, and it had daunted him. He remembered that
they had been since sunrise reaching the top of the first ridge.
"Then what must be done?"
"My advice is to look for the second cache."
They turned back, following the crest until they found an easier but
longer way down. Graham glanced at them sharply when they reached the
camp, and guessed the truth, though Andrew tried to smile.
"Leave me behind," he urged.
"No," said Andrew firmly; "not while we have strength enough to haul
the sled. There's no more to be said on that point. We're going on
together to the gap in the long ridge."
"When do you mean to start?"
"Right now!" Carnally broke in. "Get the camp truck rolled up. We'll
have mighty keen appetites before we make the cache."
In quarter of an hour they crossed the creek and toiled up a broken
slope, and when they gained the top Andrew looked back at the island
with a grim smile.
"Yesterday afternoon I came up that river at four miles an hour,
looking forward to my supper like an epicure. Now I'm glad to see the
last of the place."
"Quit talking!" said Carnally. "We can make a few minutes by a hustle
down the pitch ahead."
They went down, stumbling and sliding, while Graham clung tightly to
the lurching sled. Time was of vital importance to them now, for its
flight could be measured by the exhaustion of their food supply. For
the hour or two of daylight that remained Carnally drove his comrade
hard, and it was with a strange savage hilarity that they rushed the
sled down declivities and dragged it with many a crash and bump
through thickets. Their course was roughly south and any deviation was
intolerable. Night closed in, but it was far from dark and they held
on until Andrew stumbled and fell. The sled struck him before he could
get up, but a hard smile was on his lips when he rose shakily and
looked about. There was an uncovered rock not far off with a few
junipers growing beside it.
"This is far enough, Jake," he said. "You're bad to tire, but I don't
suppose you feel equal to hauling another passenger."
They broke camp in the dark the next morning, and the forced marches
they made during the next seven days wore the half-starved men
terribly. Sometimes they had to contend with fresh snow, in which the
sled runners sank; sometimes they plodded doggedly with lowered heads
while a raging wind drove the stinging flakes into their pinched
faces; and there were days of bitter frost when they could not keep
warm. Still, they crept on across the rugged desolation, and one
evening reached a belt of timber beneath a low range that stretched
across their path. The ridge was broken by a gap a mile or two ahead,
and it was there that Andrew had instructed Mappin to make the second
cache. A crescent moon rose above the dark tree-tops as they lighted a
fire. Andrew glanced at the hillside irresolutely.
"There's food up yonder, if we could get our hands on it, and I would
enjoy a good supper, Heaven knows; but I don't feel equal to facing
another disappointment," he said. "I'm afraid we'll have to wait until
to-morrow."
"That's my feeling," Carnally agreed. "I've gone as far as I'm able,
and that grub won't be found easily. You may as well gather some wood
and fill the kettle."
When they had eaten the few morsels he allowed them they sat smoking
beside the fire. The thin spruce boughs above them were laden with
snow which now and then fell upon the brands; a malignant wind swept
between the slender trunks and blew the smoke about the men. After a
while the casual talk, which had cost them an effort to keep up, died
away, and there was a long silence until Carnally spoke.
"I guess we're all thinking about those provisions. We'll look for
them at sun-up. What I've been trying to do for several days is to put
myself in Mappin's place."
"It must have been difficult," Andrew remarked. "If I thought you
could do so, I'd disown you. But go on."
"Well," said Carnally, "we have agreed that he meant to make it hard
for us to find the cache; but he'd try to fix things so the packers he
sent up with the truck shouldn't guess his object. He wouldn't tell
them to pick a place where nobody would think of looking."
"You're assuming that he'd employ honest men," Graham objected.
"What's to prevent his hiring three or four toughs and bribing them to
say nothing?"
"He's too smart," said Carnally promptly. "He'd know that if we got
lost up here the fellows could keep striking him for money and he'd
have to pay; while if we got through, there'd be a risk of our finding
them and buying them over. Besides, men of the kind he'd want are
scarce in the bush. If they're to be found, it's hanging round the
saloons in the cities."
"Then we'll assume that the boys were square. That would make it
harder for him and easier for us. What follows?"
Carnally drank some tea from a blackened can before he answered.
"This matter needs a lot of thinking out, and it looks as if our lives
depended on our thinking right. Allinson's instructions to the hog
seem to have been pretty clear, and he wouldn't plant the cache too
far from the gap. Then he'd have to arrange things so the boys would
think they'd dumped the truck in a handy place for a party coming down
from the north."
"I believe he has never been up here," Andrew argued. "Are there any
good maps? I couldn't get one."
"They're sketchy," Graham said. "My idea is that Mappin would get
hold of a prospector who knows the country and have a good talk with
him; but he wouldn't send him up with the other men."
"It's probable," agreed Carnally. "Well, in my opinion the provisions
are lying south of the pass in one of the gulches leading down from
the height of land, but not directly on our line of march. You can
come up from Rain Bluff several ways, and the hog would mark a route
for the boys which would bring them in, so far as he could figure, a
bit outside the shortest track. We've got to find the gulch they'd
pitch on. It's our brains against Mappin's."
"Your brains," Andrew corrected him.
Carnally knocked out his pipe.
"I allow I'll want a clear head to-morrow and I'm going to sleep."
He and Andrew left camp in the dark the next morning; but day had
broken when they stood in the gap of the neck, looking down on the
broken country beneath. For a short distance the descent from the pass
was clearly defined, leading down a hollow among the rocks, but after
that it opened out on to a scarp of hillside from which a number of
ravines branched off and led to the banks of a frozen creek. They
seemed to be filled with brush, and the spurs between them were rough.
It was a difficult country to traverse, and Andrew realized with
concern that the search might last several days.
"Take that right hand gulch," Carnally directed. "Follow it right down
to the creek and come back up the next farther on, while I prospect
east. If we find nothing in the ravines, we'll try the spurs."
"The obvious place is the gap we're standing in," Andrew pointed out.
"How would Mappin get over that without making his packers
suspicious?"
"I thought of it," said Carnally. "He'd contend that he was afraid the
cache might get snowed up; and it would be a pretty good reason. The
drifts pile up deep in a gap like this."
Andrew left him and spent a long while climbing down a rough ravine
which led him to the river. It was noon when he came back up another
and the exertion had told on him, but they had long ago dispensed with
a midday meal and he held on at a dragging pace until a thrill ran
through him at the sight of a tall pole among the rocks ahead. He made
for it in haste, floundering over the snow-covered stones, and lost it
once or twice at a bend in the gully. At last he stopped in the bottom
of the hollow, looking up at a steep face of rock. It was ragged and
broken, glazed with ice in some places, and he doubted whether he
could get up; but a foot or two of the pole rose above the top.
Following up the gully, he looked for an easier ascent, but he could
not find one. Fearing to lose the pole, he stopped and shouted on the
chance that Carnally might be in the neighborhood. Presently a cry
answered him, and when Carnally came scrambling down the hollow Andrew
took him back and pointed out the pole.
"A dead fir!" cried Carnally. "Looks as if somebody had broken the
branches off, and there are no other trees about! The trouble is, we
can't get up from here."
"We will have to!" declared Andrew. "If you could give me a lift up
over the worst bits, I'd help you when I had found a hold. Anyway, we
must try!"
Carnally consented dubiously. The rock was about thirty feet in height
and very steep, though there were several crevices and broken edges.
Andrew ascended one of the latter, gripping it with hands and knees.
Reaching a narrow ledge, he leaned down and gave his hand to
Carnally, and when he had helped him up they stopped for a minute or
two. They were weak and hungry, and there was an awkward bulge above.
"Steady me up," said Andrew. "If I can find a crack for my hand, I can
get up there."
For a few moments he rested his foot on Carnally's back; then he
pressed his toes against the stone and his comrade watched him
disappear beyond the bulging rock with unpleasant sensations, knowing
that he would have to follow. Presently, however, the bottom of
Andrew's fur coat fell over the edge and Carnally, seizing it,
scrambled up three or four feet, until the projecting stone forced him
outward. Losing hold with his feet, he hung by his hands for a moment
or two, in a state of horrible fear.
"Throw one arm over the projection!" Andrew shouted.
Carnally found a hold; Andrew seized his arm; and after an arduous
struggle he stood, gasping, on a snowy knob. The sharp edge of a big
slab rose eight or nine feet above him.
"Take a rest," advised Andrew. "If you go slowly, you ought to get up
this last bit."
"I'll have to try. It's a sure thing I can't get down. But how d'you
come to be so smart at this work?"
"I used to do something like it in Switzerland."
"Well," said Carnally, "you're a curious kind of man: I guess you
didn't have to climb. I'd find it a bit too exciting if I wasn't doing
it for money."
"We're not climbing for money now," Andrew grimly reminded him.
"There's food ahead of us and we must get on!"
They made the ascent, though it tried their nerve severely. When they
finally crawled up to the summit Andrew stopped, growing suddenly
white in the face.
"Look!" he said hoarsely.
Carnally sat down heavily in the snow.
"A dead tree! Nobody put it there; it grew!"
With an effort he pulled himself together.
"Come! We'll try farther on!"