Part 45 (1/2)

The trees pitched wildly in the icy blast; the moan increased to a mighty roar, and the air was thick with flying snow. Not the soft, flaky snow of the previous storm, but particles fine as frozen fog, that bit and stung as they whirled against his face in the eddying gusts that came from no direction at all and every direction at once.

The boy bowed his head to the storm and pushed steadily forward--he _must_ kill the _loup-cervier_, whose trail was growing momentarily more indistinct.

His eyes could penetrate but a few yards into the white smother, and suddenly the dark wall of the rock ledge loomed in front of him, and the trail, almost obliterated now, turned sharply and disappeared between two huge, upstanding bowlders.

CHAPTER XLI

THE BLIZZARD

At eleven o'clock in the morning Bill Carmody ordered his teams to the stables.

At twelve o'clock, when the men crowded into the grub-shack, the air was filled with fine particles of flinty snow, and the roar of the wind through the pine-tops was the mighty roar of the surf of a pounding sea.

At one o'clock the boss called ”gillon,” and with loud shouts and rough horse-play, the men made a rush for the bunk-house.

At two o'clock Daddy Dunnigan thrust his head through the doorway of the shop where Bill, under the blacksmith's approving eye, was completing a lesson in the proper welding of the broken link of a log chain.

With a mysterious quirk of the head he motioned the foreman to follow, and led the way to the cook-shack, where Blood River Jack waited with lowering brow.

”D'yez happin to know is th' b'y up yonder?” asked the old Irishman, with a jerk of his thumb in the direction of the house. Bill beat the dry snow from his clothing as he stared from one to the other.

”The boy!” he cried. ”What do you mean? Come--out with it--_quick_!”

”It is that my rifle and belt have gone from under the bunk,” Blood River Jack answered. ”They were taken while I slept. The boy did not come to dinner in the grub-shack. Is it that he eats to-day with his people?”

”Good Lord! I don't know! Haven't you seen him, Daddy?”

”Not since mebbe it's noine o'clock in th' marnin', an' he wint to th'

bunk-house. I thoucht he wuz wid Jack.” Bill thought rapidly and turned to the old man.

”Here, you, Daddy--get a move on now!” he ordered. ”That ginger cake of yours that the kid likes, hustle some of it into a pail or a basket or something, and carry it up to the house. Tell them it's for Charlie, and you'll find out if he's there. If not, get out by saying that he's probably in the bunk-house, and get back here as quick as you can make it. There is no use in alarming the people up there--yet.”

”Here you, Jack, go help the old man along. It's a tough job bucking that storm even for a short distance. Come now, beat it!”

After ten minutes the two returned, breathless from their short battle with the storm.

”He ain't there,” gasped the old man and sank down upon the wood-box with his head in his hands. ”G.o.d help um, he's out in ut!”

”I'm going to the office,” said the foreman and stepped out into the whirling snow.

”Man! Man!” called Daddy, springing to his feet; ”ye ain't a goin' to thry----” The door banged upon his words and he sagged slowly onto his rough seat.

A few minutes later Appleton stamped into the cook-shack. ”Did you find him, Daddy?” he asked.

The old man shook his head. ”He ain't in th' camp,” he muttered. ”He tuk Jack's gun whilst he slep' an' ut's huntin' he's gone--Lard hilp um!”