Part 31 (1/2)
”I'll be content if we can keep this up,” he said.
”It isn't likely,” Carroll replied with a trace of dryness, glancing down at a big rent in his jacket.
A little farther on, they waded with difficulty through a large stream, and Carroll stopped and glanced round at a deep rift in a crag on one side of them.
”I don't know whether that could be considered a valley; but we may as well look at it.”
They scrambled forward, and reaching gravelly soil where the trees were thinner, Vane surveyed the opening. It was very narrow and appeared to lose itself among the rocks. The size of the creek which flowed out of it was no guide, for those ranges are scored by running water.
”We won't waste time over that ravine,” Vane concluded. ”I noticed a wider one farther on. We'll see what it's like; though Hartley led me to understand that he came down a straight and gently sloping valley. The one we're in answers the description.”
It was two hours before they reached the second opening, and then Vane, unstrapping his pack, clambered up the steep face of a crag. When he came back, his face was thoughtful. He sat down and lighted his pipe.
”This search seems likely to take us longer than I expected,” he said.
”To begin with, there are a number of inlets, all of them pretty much alike, along this part of the coast, but I needn't go into the reasons for supposing that this is the one Hartley visited. Taking it for granted that we're right, we're up against another difficulty. So far as I could make out from the top of that rock, there's a regular series of ravines running back into the hills.”
”Hartley told you he came straight down to tidewater, didn't he?”
”That's not much of a guide. The slope of every fissure seems to run naturally from the inland watershed to this basin. Hartley was sick and it was raining all the time, and coming out of any of these ravines he'd only have to make a slight turn to reach the water. What's more, he could only tell me that he was heading roughly west. Allowing that there was no sun visible, that might have meant either northwest or southwest, which gives us the choice of searching the hollows on either side of the main valley. Now, it strikes me as most probable that he came right down the main valley itself; but we have to face the question as to whether we should push straight on, or search every opening that might be called a valley?”
”What's your idea?” Carroll rejoined.
”That we ought to go into the thing systematically, and look at every ravine we come to.”
Carroll nodded agreement.
”I guess you're right.”
They strapped their packs about them and struggled on again. Stopping half an hour for dinner, they plodded all the afternoon up a long hollow, which rose steadily in front of them. It was narrow, and in places the bottom of it was so choked with fallen trunks that they were forced for the sake of a clearer pa.s.sage to take to the creek, where they alternately stumbled among big boulders and splashed through shallow pools. The water, which was mostly melted snow, was very cold.
The light was fading down in the deep rift when, winding round a spur through a tangle of clinging underbrush, they saw the timber thin off ahead. In a few minutes Vane stopped with an exclamation, and Carroll, overtaking him, loosened his pack. They stood upon the edge of the timber, but in front of them a ma.s.s of soil and stones ran up almost vertically to a great outcrop of rock high above.
”If Hartley had come down that, he'd have remembered it,” Vane remarked grimly.
”It's obvious,” Carroll agreed, sitting down with a sigh of weariness.
”We'll try the next one to-morrow; I don't move another step to-night.”
Vane laughed.
”I've no wish to urge you. There's hardly a joint in my body that doesn't ache.” He flung down his pack and stretched himself with an air of relief. ”That's what comes of civilization and soft living. It would be nice to sit still now while somebody brought me my supper.”
As there was n.o.body to do so, he took up the ax and set about hewing chips off a fallen trunk while Carroll made a fire. Then he cut the tent poles and a few armfuls of twigs for a bed, and in half an hour the camp was pitched and a meal prepared. Darkness closed down on them while they ate, and they afterward lay a while, smoking and saying little, beside the sinking fire, while the red light flickered upon the ma.s.sy trunks and fell away again. Then they crawled into the tent and wrapped their blankets round them.
CHAPTER XVII
VANE POSTPONES THE SEARCH
When Vane rose early the next morning, there was frost in the air. The firs glistened with delicate silver filigree, and thin spears of ice stretched out from behind the boulders in the stream. The smoke of the fire thickened the light haze that filled the hollow, and when breakfast was ready the men ate hastily, eager for the exertion that would put a little warmth into them.
”We've had it a good deal colder on other trips. I suppose I've been getting luxurious, for I seem to resent it now,” observed Vane. ”There's no doubt that winter's beginning earlier that I expected up here. As soon as you can strike the tent, we'll get a move on.”