He opened his eyes to the pale flood of day; Lajeune was cooking pork
and making coffee; Ohlsen was mending snow shoes; Forbes bent over his
bunk, black against the blind square of the frozen window, feeling
blindly with his hands, and snuffling a little as he spoke:
“We’d ha’ let you sleep on, but we wanted to know what you’d be doing.
Will ye stay here with me and rest—I’m all but blind the day—or will
ye go into Fort Recompense with Jooney here and the dogs, and put the
dust in safety? Or will ye try the short cut across the pass with
Ohlsen?”
Desmond stretched, grunted, and hesitated. He felt curiously unwilling
to decide. But Forbes was waiting, his yellow fingers twitching on the
end of the bunk.
“Oh, I dunno,” he said. “What’s the hurry? Well—I guess I’ll try the
pass with Ohlsen.”
“Right.” Ohlsen nodded his heavy head, for he seldom spoke. He had the
physique men always associate with a kind and stupid fidelity. Desmond
said of him, “Them that talks most ain’t the best at heart.” Desmond
said it to himself as he rolled out of the bunk for breakfast.
Forbes stayed in his bunk, and made little moaning animal noises while
he fed. Lajeune bubbled over with quick laughter. Desmond beamed on
everyone and talked of his luck. Ohlsen sat immovable, working his jaws
like an ox, watching Desmond with his small, pale eyes.
He did not speak as they drew on their furs and packed the gold; nor as
they turned out of the shack, shutting the door swiftly behind them, and
faced the stinging splendour of the windy winter day. The cold had
lessened with the sunrise, but what cold there was the wind took and
drove to the bone. The air was filled with a glittering mist of blown
snow, and all the lower slopes of the hills and the climbing spruce
forests were hidden. Above the _poudre_ the mountains lifted like iron
in the unpitying day, and every snowfield and glacier was crowned with a
streaming feather of white against a hard turquoise sky.
“You think we’ll get through?” asked Desmond, doubtfully.
“Ay t’ank so.” Ohlsen was striding heavily, tirelessly, just behind his
shoulder. His grey eyes, still fixed on Desmond, were like little bits
of glacier ice inset above his high cheek bones.
“We may.”
“We may. It ain’t far.” Desmond was talkative. “This gold weighs heavy.
I like the colour o’gold. Ohlsen, you got any children?”
“Ay, got two kids.”
“Wisht I had. Maybe I will, though—little boy ’n’ gal, with kind o’
gold hair. See here, you ever had a garden?”
“No.”
“I’ve me garden on me back here, hey? With them blue things that smell,
and hens. You come and see me, Ohlsen, and you’ll have the best there
is.”
“T’anks. Ay like fresh eggs.”
“So do I. And apples. Say, Ohlsen, I’m sorry this luck ain’t for you.”
Ohlsen did not answer or slacken his heavy, stooping stride against the
wind. The curved hills opened slowly, swung aside. The spruce stood up,
came nearer, and closed in around them like the outposts of a waiting
army. The wind roared through the trees like a flood of which the surf
was snow.
“Do you think we’ll do it?” shouted Desmond again and Ohlsen answered:
“Ay t’ank so.”
In a little while the trees were a dark mass beneath them, and they were
out on the bare heights, fighting with the wind for every foothold.
Desmond staggered under it, but Ohlsen seemed untiring, climbing very
close at his shoulder. The glare of the sun seared their eyes, but they
had no heat of it. In all the vast upheaval of the hills, in all the
stark space of the sky, there was no warmth, no life.
Something took Desmond by the throat.
“We’ll not do it,” he cried, to Ohlsen. “Let’s turn back.”
For answer Ohlsen unstrapped the heavy pack of gold, fastened it on his
shoulders, and went on. This time he was ahead, and his huge body
sheltered Desmond from the wind.
“I been drinking too much,” thought Desmond; “and here’s Ohlsen having
to do my work for me. It ain’t right.”
They were on a high ridge, and the wind was at its worst. On the left
lay a precipice, and the dark masses of the spruce. On the right the
depths were veiled with glittering silver, now and then shot through
with the blue-green gleam of a glacier. It was fair going for a steady
head, but the wind was dangerous. It took Desmond, as with hands, and
thrust him to his knees at the narrowing of the ledge. He slipped a
little. The dark-grey ice, white veined, gave him no hold. He lost his
head, slipped a little farther, and the white driven foam of snow and
cloud above the glacier was suddenly visible. He called to Ohlsen.
Ohlsen could not have heard, yet he turned and came slowly back. Desmond
could have raged at him for his slowness if his lips had not been so
stiff and dry. Inside his fur mitts his hands were suddenly wet. Gently
he slid a little farther, and the wind-driven white below was plainer,
cut through with turquoise as with a sword. He shut his eyes. And when
he opened them Ohlsen had stopped and was standing quietly watching him.
Desmond shrieked hoarsely, for he understood. Between the two drove the
torrent of the wind, shutting slayer and all but slain into a separate
prison of silence. But even the wind did not stir Ohlsen; he stood like
a gray rock, watching Desmond. Presently he leaned forward, hands on
knees, his back humped grotesquely under the pack, as the cruel or the
curious might watch the struggles of a drowning kitten. Desmond was
shaken to his fingers by the terrible thudding of his heart. He could
not make a sound. Earth and sky flashed away. There remained only the
gray inhuman shape beyond the barrier of the wind.
Presently that also flashed away. Yet, as Desmond fell, he was aware of
light, a great swift relief, for he knew that he dreamed.
Then came darkness.