Part 13 (1/2)

Grenfell made a sign of acquiescence.

”Have it your way. If we ever come back to this cache again, and I'm played out, as I probably will be, you'll have the pleasure of packing down everything we want.”

Weston did not answer, but there was a little satisfied smile in his eyes as he watched the horse wander away unhampered into the rain.

After this they sat down to a very simple meal. Then they strapped their packs on their shoulders--a thick blanket each, a small bag of flour, some salt pork and green tea, and, while Grenfell carried the light ax, Weston slung a frying-pan, a kettle and a pannikin about him, as well as a rifle, for there are black-tail deer in that country, and they could not be sure that their provisions would last the journey through. The prospector soon discovers how much a man can do without, and it is a good deal more than men bred in the cities would suppose. The oddments rattled and banged about Weston's shoulders as he went up the steep slope through the thick timber; and by the time they had cleared the latter, Grenfell was visibly distressed, and both of them realized that their difficulties had commenced.

Any one unaccustomed to the country would probably have considered the devious march that they already had made arduous enough, but they had, at least for the most part, followed the valleys and crossed only a few low divides, and it was evident now that their way led close up to the eternal snow. There was a rock scarp in front of them, up part of which they went on their hands and knees. When they reached the summit of this, the slightly more level strip along which they floundered was strewn with shattered rock and gravel that had come down from the heights above with the thaw in the spring; and it was with difficulty that they made a mile an hour. The gold trail is usually long and arduous; but the prospector is content to have it so, for once it is made easier the poor man's day has gone. Then the men of the cities set up their hydraulic monitors, or drive their adits, and the free-lance who disdains to work for them rolls up his old blankets and pushes out once again into the waste.

They made supper at sunset among the last of the dwindling pines; and then lay awake s.h.i.+vering part of the night, for a nipping wind came down from the snow, and they were very wet and cold. It rained again the next day and most of the following one. Still, they spent the two days crawling along the farther side of the range, for when they had struggled through the snow in a rift between two peaks, a great wall of rock that fell almost sheer cut them off from the next valley.

Somewhat to Weston's astonishment, Grenfell now showed little sign of flagging. He seemed intent and eager; and when they stopped, gasping, where the rock fell straight down beneath their feet to the thick timber that climbed from a thread-like river, he sat down and gazed steadily below him.

”They're hemlocks along that bend?” he asked, pointing to a ridge of somber green that rose above the water.

”Yes,” said Weston, ”I think they are.”

Grenfell straightened himself suddenly.

”My sight's not as good as yours, but I seemed to know they must be.

Can you make out any Douglas firs in the thicker timber?”

”Yes,” said Weston, excitedly, ”there's a spire or two higher than the rest. You recognize the place?”

His companion sat still with signs of tension in his face, and it was clear that he was racking his befogged brain. The few weeks of abstinence and healthful toil had made a change in him, but one cannot in that s.p.a.ce of time get rid of the results of years of indulgence; and under stress of excitement the man became confused and fanciful.

”I'm not sure. I'm trying to think,” he said, laying a lean, trembling hand on Weston's arm. ”Did you never feel that there was something you ought to recollect about a spot which you couldn't have seen before?”

Weston was in no mood to discuss questions of that kind, though the curious sensation was not altogether unfamiliar to him.

”There's only one way you could have known there was hemlock yonder,”

he a.s.serted.

Grenfell looked up at him with a dry smile.

”You have to remember that I have been up in the ranges several times.

Parts of them are very much alike.”

After that Weston sat very still for several minutes, though he found it exceedingly difficult. He had more than once during the last few weeks doubted that Grenfell had ever found the quartz-reef at all, for it seemed quite possible that he had, as the track-grader suggested, merely fancied that he had done so, and the man's manner had borne out that supposition. Cut off from the whisky, he had now and then fallen into fits of morbid moodiness, during which he seemed very far from sure about the gold. This had naturally occasioned Weston a good deal of anxiety. He had thrown up his occupation and sunk his last dollar in the venture, and the finding of the quartz-reef would, he commenced to realize, open up to him alluring possibilities. At length his companion spoke slowly.

”If the river runs across the valley to the opposite range a mile higher, this is the way I came down when I found the gold,” he said.

Weston scrambled to his feet. Floundering in haste along the edge of the crag, he stopped some sixty yards farther on, with a little quiver running through him. From that point he could see that the river ran straight across to the opposite wall of rock. He flung up his arms with an exultant shout. Then they went on eagerly when Grenfell joined him.

”Yes,” said the latter, when he had glanced below, ”I must have seen it the time I struck the gold. Only then I came down the valley.”

They pushed on. Toward sunset a thick rain once more came down, and filmy mists wreathed themselves about the hills and by and by filled up the valley, and the strip of mountainside along which the two lonely men plodded rose isolated from a sea of woolly vapor. They held on, however, until, when the dusk commenced to creep up the white peak above them, Weston stopped with a little start. There was a curious huddled object in a crevice of the rocks not far in front of him.

”Do you see that?” he asked. ”What can it be?”

Grenfell gazed at the thing steadily, and then turned to his companion.