Part 32 (2/2)

After all, it was in the stern North that he had first seen things in their true proportions; it was there that the duty he had vaguely realized had grown into definite shape, and Leonard's treachery to Allinson's had been clearly perceived. Moreover, he had somehow gained a new and unexpected sense of power. Then as the fire blazed up he glanced with sudden interest at the faces of his comrades. They were worn and haggard, and Graham's was stamped with lines of pain; but there was something in them he could best describe as fine. Hunger and toil, instead of subduing the men, had given them new strength and an elusive dignity. Andrew remembered having seen that puzzling look in the lean, brown faces of tired and thirsty soldiers as a brigade went by through the rolling dust of the African veldt. It had been flung back, shattered, from a rock fortress, and was pressing on, undaunted, to a fresh attack. Andrew's heart had throbbed faster at the sight, and he now felt something of the same thrill again; but these things were not to be spoken of.

”Well,” said Carnally, ”I might feel content if I thought Mappin was as hungry as we are; but there's not much fear of that. The blasted hog has sense enough to keep out of the bush; going about the country getting his hands on other men's money pays him better. He's no use for eating supper behind a bank of snow; the Place Viger and the Windsor in Montreal are more his style.”

This was far from heroic, but Andrew laughed; the minor weaknesses of human nature seldom jarred on him.

”I think,” he suggested lightly, ”you might, for a change, call him the swine. It's a term we sometimes use and it sounds grosser than the other. The hogs I've seen running in the Ontario bush were thin and not repulsive.”

”I'll admit it's foolish; but when I think of that man studying the menu, I get mad! Can't you see him picking out the dollar dishes, on the European plan? Canvasbacks and such, if they're in season.”

”They wouldn't give him much canvasback for a dollar,” Graham objected.

”That doesn't count. The point is--where does he get the dollar?”

”I'm afraid he has got a few of them out of us,” said Andrew. ”He has got more out of the Rain Bluff shareholders; though I'm glad to think that supply will be stopped. Anyhow, our first business is to find the cache.”

”That's so,” a.s.sented Carnally, as he threw some branches on the fire.

”We'll try again at sun-up. Though it makes you feel easier now and then, talking doesn't do much good.”

A few minutes later they were all asleep, and when day broke Andrew and Carnally descended a steep, snow-covered bank below the neck.

Their search proved unsuccessful, and they were very silent after they returned to camp in the evening. The next morning Graham gave them a very small bannock for breakfast, and then threw an empty flour-bag into the snow.

”Boys,” he said gravely, ”you have got to find the cache to-day.”

Spurred on by the imminence of starvation, they started off again, beating their way against a driving snowstorm, stumbling often and rising each time with greater difficulty; always, however, keeping eager watch for the pole that should mark the spot of the cache.

After three days of fruitless search, they could not bear to talk when they met in camp in the evening. They knew that starvation was upon them; their last strength was fast running out. They were not the men, however, to give up easily; and once more they set off grimly at sunrise.

It was snowing hard when Andrew, knowing that he could drag himself no farther, crawled into the shelter of a rock on the desolate hillside and sat down s.h.i.+vering. There was an intolerable pain in his left side, he was faint with hunger, and his muscles ached cruelly. His fur coat was ragged, his moccasins were cut by the snow-shoe fastenings and falling to pieces; his face was pinched and hollow. It was some hours since he had seen Carnally. He was physically unable to continue the search, but he shrank from going back to camp, where there was nothing to eat, and facing his famis.h.i.+ng comrade. Indeed, as he grew lethargic with cold, it scarcely seemed worth while to make the effort of getting on his feet again. He sat still, listlessly looking down across the white slopes; Carnally would probably pa.s.s near the spot, though there was now no expectation of his finding the cache. During the last few days they had sometimes met while they searched and exchanged a brief ”Nothing yet,” or a dejected shake of the head. It would be the same again, though Andrew felt that his comrade might have succeeded if they could have held out.

He could not see far through the snow, which swept along the hillside before a savage wind. Blurred clumps of spruce marked the edge of the lower ground, but the river was hidden and the straggling junipers on the spurs were formless and indistinct. At last, however, Andrew noticed something moving near the end of a long ridge and, as it must be a man, he concluded it was Carnally returning. Then he imagined that the hazy figure stopped and waved an arm, as if signaling to somebody below; that was curious, for his comrade would be alone.

Andrew decided that he had been mistaken, and bent down to brush the gathering snow from his torn moccasins; but he started when he looked up. There were now two men on the slope below, and while he gazed at them a third emerged from among the rocks.

CHAPTER XIX

A WOMAN'S WAY

They had not been forgotten while they journeyed through the wilds.

Frobisher thought of them now and then, and his daughter more often; indeed, her mind dwelt a good deal on Andrew after he left and she found herself looking forward eagerly to his return. She spent some weeks in an American city with her father, but its gaieties had less attraction for her than usual, and she was glad when they went back for a time to the Lake of Shadows. On the day after her arrival she drove across the ice to the Landing and inquired at a store where news circulated whether anything had been heard of the Allinson expedition.

The proprietor had nothing to tell her, but while she spoke to him a man crossed the floor, and she saw with annoyance that it was Mappin.

She left while he made his purchases, but he joined her when she was putting some parcels into the sleigh, and did not seem daunted by the coldness of her manner.

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