Part 31 (2/2)

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 pa.s.s 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 k.n.o.b. 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 hoa.r.s.ely.

Carnally sat down heavily in the snow.

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