"I believe you're right," the Gaffer announced cheerfully. "A bear
would sniff louder--though there's no telling. The snow was falling an
hour back, and I dessay 'tis pretty thick outside. If 'tis a bear, we
don't want him fooling on the roof, and I misdoubt the drift by the
north corner is pretty tall by this time. Is he there still?"
"I felt something then . . . through the chink, here . . . like a warm
breath. It's gone now. Come here, Snipe, and listen."
"'Breath,' eh? Did it _smell_ like bear?"
"I don't know . . . I didn't smell nothing, to notice. Here, put your
head down, close."
The Snipe bent his head. And at that moment the door shook gently.
All stared; and saw the latch move up, up . . . and falteringly descend
on the staple. They heard the click of it.
The door was secured within by two stout bars. Against these there had
been no pressure. The men waited in a silence that ached. But the
latch was not lifted again.
The Snipe, kneeling, looked up at Cooney. Cooney shivered and looked at
David Faed. Long Ede, with his back to the fire, softly shook his feet
free of the rugs. His eyes searched for the Gaffer's face. But the old
man had drawn back into the gloom of his bunk, and the lamplight shone
only on a grey fringe of beard. He saw Long Ede's look, though, and
answered it quietly as ever.
"Take a brace of guns aloft, and fetch us a look round. Wait, if
there's a chance of a shot. The trap works. I tried it this afternoon
with the small chisel."
Long Ede lit his pipe tied down the ear-pieces of his cap, lifted a
light ladder off its staples, and set it against a roof-beam: then, with
the guns under his arm, quietly mounted. His head and shoulders wavered
and grew vague to sight in the smoke-wreaths. "Heard anything more?" he
asked. "Nothing since," answered the Snipe. With his shoulder Long Ede
pushed up the trap. They saw his head framed in a panel of moonlight,
with one frosty star above it. He was wriggling through. "Pitch him up
a sleeping-bag, somebody," the Gaffer ordered, and Cooney ran with one.
"Thank 'ee, mate," said Long Ede, and closed the trap.
They heard his feet stealthily crunching the frozen stuff across the
roof. He was working towards the eaves over-lapping the door.
Their breath tightened. They waited for the explosion of his gun.
None came. The crunching began again: it was heard down by the very
edge of the eaves. It mounted to the blunt ridge overhead; then it
ceased.
"He will not have seen aught," David Faed muttered.
"Listen, you. Listen by the door again." They talked in whispers.
Nothing; there was nothing to be heard. They crept back to the fire,
and stood there warming themselves, keeping their eyes on the latch.
It did not move. After a while Cooney slipped off to his hammock; Faed
to his bunk, alongside Lashman's. The Gaffer had picked up his book
again. The Snipe laid a couple of logs on the blaze, and remained
beside it, cowering, with his arms stretched out as if to embrace it.
His shapeless shadow wavered up and down on the bunks behind him; and,
across the fire, he still stared at the latch.