CHAPTER XVII
A RESPITE
Light snow was driving across the waste before a savage wind when the party sat at breakfast one morning. Day had broken, but there was little light, and Blake, looking out from behind a slab of rock in the shelter of which a few junipers clung, thought that three or four miles would be the longest distance that he could see. This was peculiarly unfortunate, because an Indian trapper whom they had met two days before had told them that their course led across a wide untimbered stretch, on the opposite side of which one or two isolated bluffs would indicate the neighborhood of the factory. Disastrous consequences might follow the missing of these woods.
A pannikin of weak tea made from leaves which already had been twice infused stood among the embers; and Benson was leaning over a log, dividing the last of the meat. He held up a small piece.
"I had thought of saving this, but it hardly seems worth while," he said. "If we make the factory tonight, we'll get a good supper."
"You don't mention what will happen if we miss it," Harding commented with grim humor. "Anyway, that piece of meat won't make much difference. What do you think, Blake?"
Blake forced a cheerful laugh.
"Put it all in; we're going to make the post; as a matter of fact, we have to! How's the leg this morning?"
"I don't think it's worse than it was last night," Harding answered.
"If I'm careful how I go, it ought to stand another journey."
He made a grimace as he stretched out the limb. It was very sore, for during the last few days the strain the snowshoe threw on the muscles had nearly disabled him. Now, he knew it would be difficult to hold out for another journey; but he had grown accustomed to pain and weariness and hunger. They were, he imagined, the lot of all who braved the rigors of winter in the northern wilds.
"Well," said Benson, "there's no use in carrying anything that's not strictly needful, and the empty grub-bag may stay behind. Then here's a pair of worn-out moccasins I was keeping as a stand by. I should be able to get new ones at the factory."
"It's still some distance off," Harding reminded him.
"If we don't make it, the chances are that I won't need the things.
But what about your collection of gum?"
Nothing had been said on this point for some time, but Harding's face wore a curious look as he took up a bag which weighed three or four pounds.
"Some of the stuff might be used for low-grade varnish; but that's not what I'm out for. I've been trying to believe that a few of the specimens might prove better on analysis; but I guess it's a delusion."
With a quick, resolute movement, he threw the bag into the fire, and when the resin flared up with a thick brown smoke the others regarded him with silent sympathy. This was the end of the project from which he had expected so much; but it was obvious that he could meet failure with fortitude. Nothing that would serve any purpose could be said, and they quietly strapped on their blankets.
There was not much snow when they set off, and fortunately the wind blew behind them, but the white haze narrowed in the prospect and Blake, breaking the trail, kept his eyes on the compass. He was not at all sure of the right line, but he had the satisfaction of knowing that he was, at least, going straight.
After a few minutes, Harding glanced behind. Their camping place had vanished, they were out in an open waste, and he knew that he had started on the last march he was capable of making. Where it would lead him he could not tell, though the answer to the question was of vital importance. For a time he thought of his wife, and wondered with keen anxiety what would become of her if his strength gave way before they reached the post; but he drove these cares out of his mind. It was dangerous to harbor them, and it served no purpose; his part was to struggle on, swinging the net snowshoes while he grappled with the pain each step caused him. He shrank from contemplating the distance yet to be covered; it seemed vast to him in his weakness, and he felt himself a feeble, crippled thing. Soft snow and arctic cold opposed his advance with malignant force; but his worn-out body still obeyed the spur of his will, and he roused himself to fight for the life that had some value to another. He must march, dividing up the distance into short stages that had less effect upon the imagination; limping forward from the ice-glazed rock abreast of him to the white hillock which loomed up dimly where the snow blurred the horizon; then again he would look ahead from some patch of scrub to the most prominent elevation that he could see.
The marks he chose and passed seemed innumerable; but the wilderness still ran on, pitilessly empty. His leg was intensely painful; he knew that he must break down soon; and they had seen nothing of a stony rise for which they watched eagerly. To find it would simplify matters, for the Indian had made them understand that the bluffs about the post lay nearly east of it.
Noon passed, and they still pressed forward without a halt, for there was little more than three hours' daylight left, and it was unthinkable that they should spend the night without food or shelter. The horizon steadily narrowed as the snow thickened; there was a risk of their passing the guiding-marks, or even the factory.
It was nearly three o'clock when Harding stumbled and fell into the snow. He found himself unable to get up until Benson helped him, and in his attempt to rise he further strained his weakened leg. For a moment he leaned on his companion, his face contorted with pain.
"The fall seems to have hurt you," Benson said sympathetically.
"I'll have to go on," Harding gasped; and, setting his teeth, he strode forward; but he made only a few paces. The pain was severe; his head reeled; his strength gave way and he sank down on his knees.
Benson and Blake stopped in consternation.
"If I've kept the right line, we can't be far from the factory," Blake said encouragingly.
"I'm played out," Harding declared. "You'll have to leave me here. If you make the post, you can come back with a sled."
"No! How are we to find you with our trail drifting up? Besides, you'd be frozen in a few hours. If you can't walk, you'll have to be carried. Get hold of him, Benson!"
Benson lifted him to his feet, Blake seized his arm, and, both supporting him, they resumed the march. Leaning on them heavily, Harding was dragged along, and they silenced the feeble protests he made now and then.
"Stop talking that rot! We see this out together!" Blake told him roughly.
None of them had much doubt as to what the end would be, but they stubbornly held on. Nothing further was said. Blake and Benson themselves were nearly exhausted, and their pinched faces were set and stern, and Harding's was drawn up in a ghastly fashion by suffering. Still, their overtaxed muscles somehow obeyed the relentless call on them.
At last, when the light had almost gone, Benson stepped into a slight depression that slanted across their path.
"Hold on!" he cried hoarsely. "Look at this!"
Blake stooped, while Harding, swaying awkwardly with bent leg, held on to him. The hollow was small: a smooth groove of slightly lower level than the rest of the snow.
"A sledge trail!" he cried in an exultant voice. "Drifted up a bit, but they've been hauling lumber over it, and that means a good deal to us!" He indicated a shallow furrow a foot or two outside the groove. "That's been made by the butt of a trailing log. The Indian said there were bluffs near the post, and they wouldn't haul their cordwood farther than necessary!"
They stood silent for a few moments, overcome by relief. They had a guide to shelter and safety! When they had gathered breath, Blake steadied Harding, who found standing difficult.
"We must make a move and hustle all we can," he said eagerly. "It will be dark in half an hour, and the snow won't take long in filling up the trail."
The risk of missing the factory, which might be near at hand, was not to be faced, and they pulled themselves together for a last effort, Blake and Benson, breathing hard as they dragged Harding along. The light was rapidly going; now that they had changed their course the snow lashed their faces, making it difficult to see, and they plodded forward with lowered heads and eyes fixed on the guiding-line. It grew faint in places, and vanished altogether after a while. Then they stopped in dismay, and Blake went down on his knees, scraping with ragged mittens in the snow.
"I can't see which way it runs, but it certainly doesn't end here," he said. "Go ahead and look for it, Benson; but don't get out of call!"
Benson moved forward, and when he faded into the cloud of driving flakes those he left behind were conscious of a keen uneasiness. They could see only a few yards; it was blowing fresh and the wind might carry their voices away, and if this happened the chances were against their comrade's being able to rejoin them. After a few minutes Blake shouted, and the answer was reassuring. They waited a little longer, and then when they cried out a hail came back very faintly:
"Nothing yet!"
"Keep closer!" Blake shouted; but it seemed that Benson did not hear him, for there was no reply.
"Hadn't you better go after him?" Harding suggested.
"No!" Blake snapped. "It would make things worse to scatter." He raised his voice. "Come back, before your tracks fill up!"
The silence that followed filled them with alarm; but while they listened in strained suspense a faint call came out of the snow. The words were indistinguishable, but the voice had an exultant note in it.
"He has found the trail!" Blake exclaimed with deep relief.
It was difficult to see the print of Benson's shoes, and Harding could not move a step alone, but they called out at intervals as Blake slowly helped him along, and at last a shadowy object loomed in front of them. As they came up, Benson pointed to a slight depression.
"We can follow it if it gets no fainter; but there's no time to lose," he said. "It might be safer if I went first and kept my eye on the trail."
He shuffled forward with lowered head, while Blake came behind, helping Harding as best he could. All three long remembered the next half-hour. Once they lost the trail and were seized with despair, but, searching anxiously, they found it again.
At last a pale, elusive light appeared amid the snow ahead, and they watched it with keen satisfaction as it grew clearer. When it had changed to a strong yellow glow, they passed a broken white barrier which Blake supposed was a ruined stockade, and the hazy mass of a building showed against the snow. Then there was a loud barking of dogs, and while they sought for the door a stream of light suddenly shone out, with a man's dark figure in the midst of it.
The next minute they entered the house, and Harding, lurching forward across the floor of a large room, clutched at a table and then fell with a crash into a chair. After the extreme cold outside, the air was suffocatingly hot. Overcome by the change and pain, Harding leaned back with flushed face and half-closed eyes, while his companions stood still, with the snow glistening on their ragged furs.
The man shut the door before he turned to them.
"A rough night," he said calmly. "Ye might as weel sit down. Where do ye hail from?"
Blake laughed as he found a seat. He imagined that their appearance must have been somewhat startling, but he knew it takes a good deal to disturb the equanimity of a Hudson Bay Scot.
"From Sweetwater; but we have been up in the timber belt since winter set in. Now we have run out of provisions and my partner's lamed by snowshoe trouble."
"Ay," said the man; "I suspected something o' the kind. But maybe ye'll be wanting supper?"
"I believe, if we were put to it, we could eat half a caribou," Benson told him with a grin.
"It's no to be had," the Scot answered in a matter-of-fact tone. "I can give ye a good thick bannock and some whitefish. Our stores are no so plentiful the now."
They took off their furs and glanced about the place while their host was busy at the stove. The room was large, and its walls of narrow logs were chinked with clay and moss. Guns and steel traps hung upon them; the floor was made of uneven boards which had obviously been split in the nearest bluff; and the furniture was of the simplest and rudest description. The room had, however, an air of supreme comfort to the famishing newcomers, and after the first few minutes they found it delightfully warm. They ate ravenously the food given them, and afterward the agent brought Harding some warm water and examined his leg.
"Ye'll no walk far for a while, I'm thinking," he commented. "Rest it on the chair here and sit ye still."
Harding was glad to comply; and, lighting their pipes, the men began to talk. Their host, who told them his name was Robertson, was a rather hard-featured man of middle age.
"I'm all my lone; my clerk's away with the breeds at the Swan Lake," he said. "Where are ye making for?"
"For the south," Blake answered. "We came here for shelter, badly tired, and we want to hire a dog team and a half-breed guide, if possible, as soon as my partner's fit to travel. Then we want provisions."
"I'm afraid I cannot supply ye. Our stores are low—we got few fish and caribou the year, and we have not a team to spare."
"Well," said Benson, "I don't suppose you'll turn us out, and we'd be glad to pay for our accommodation. We have no wish to take the trail again without food or transport."
Robertson looked thoughtful.
"Ye might wait a week or two; and then we'll maybe see better what can be done."
He asked them a few questions about their journey, and then Harding took the piece of gum from its case.
"I guess you have seen nothing like this round here?"
"No," said Robertson, after examining it carefully. "I have made it my business to study the natural products o' the district, and it's my opinion ye'll find no gum of this kind in the northern timber belt."
"I suppose you're right. Leaving furs out, if the country's rich in anything, it's probably minerals."
"There's copper and some silver, but I've seen no ore that would pay for working when ye consider the transport."
"I don't suppose you're anxious to encourage prospecting," Benson suggested.
Robertson smiled.
"If there was a rich strike, we would no object. We're here to trade, and supplying miners is no quite so chancy as dealing in furs; but to have a crowd from the settlements disturbing our preserves and going away after finding nothing o' value would not suit us. Still, I'm thinking it's no likely: the distance and the winter will keep them out."
"Did you ever see signs of oil?"
"No here; there's petroleum three hundred miles south, but no enough, in my opinion, to pay for driving wells. Onyway, the two prospecting parties that once came up didna come back again."
He left them presently, and when they heard him moving about an adjoining room, Harding made a suggestion.
"We'll stay here for a while and then look for that petroleum on our way to the settlements."
Blake agreed readily; the determination, he thought, was characteristic of his comrade. Harding's project had failed, but instead of being crushed by disappointment, he was already considering another.