The Rim of the Desert

by Ada Woodruff Anderson

He had not yet tried to rise to his feet, so safe-guarding himself with the alpenstock thrust once more in the ice, he paused to take the flask from his pocket and poured all that remained of the liquor into the cup. It was a little over half full. Possibly he remembered how lavish he had been with those previous draughts, for he looked at his companion with a kind of regret as he lifted the cup unsteadily to drink. Then, gathering the remnants of his courage, he put his arm under her head, raising it while he forced the small surplus of brandy he had left between her lips. She revived enough under the scalding swallow to push the cup away. Anywhere else he would have laughed at her feeble effort to throw off his touch; but he did not urge her to finish the draught, and, as he had done earlier that day, himself hastily drained the cup. He dropped it beside the empty flask and struggled up.

"Now," he said, "we've got to make that spur where it's safe. Come. It isn't far; just been up to that place where Banks helped us across; had to come back for you."

But he was obliged to lift her to her feet and to support her up the slope. And this, even though the tongue widened above them, threw him perilously close to the crevasse. Once, twice, the ice broke on the brink and dropped clinking down, down. It was impossible to make the leap again to the higher surface they had descended; unhampered, he must have been physically unfit. Behind them the cloud closed over the Pass and the mountain top under which the Oriental Limited had stood. His companion no longer looked back; she moved as mechanically though less certainly than one who walks in sleep. The fears that possessed him, that she herself had held so finely in check when they had followed Banks on this glacier, did not trouble her now. Her indifference to their extremity began to play on Frederic's unhinged nerves. This white, blue-lipped woman was not the Beatriz Weatherbee he had known; who had climbed the slope with him that morning, all exhilaration, spirit, charm; whose example had challenged his endurance and held his courage to the sticking point.

"Why don't you say something?" he complained. "Have you turned into ice? Now look where you step, can't you? Deuced fix you got us into, dreaming there in the clouds, when Lucky Banks had left the spur. Come on, you bloodless ghost; come, or I'll let you stay where you drop. Nice place to spend the night in. Almighty God!"

So, upbraiding her when she stumbled, blaming her for their plight, threatening to leave her if she should fall, and flaying himself on with renewed panic, he brought her to the top of the double crevasse and the prospector's crossing. But here, with the levels of the spur before them, her strength reached low ebb. This time he was not able to rouse her, and he threw down his alpenstock and took her in his arms, and went slipping and recovering the remaining steps. He stopped, winded, and stood her on her feet, but her body sagged limply against him, and the sight of her still face terrified him. He carried her a little farther, to the shelter of the crag, and laid her there. Then he dropped to his knees beside her, and grasping her shoulders shook her, at first slowly, then swiftly, with the roughness of despair.

"Wake up," he cried thickly. "Wake up! Don't you see we're out of that hole? Come, Banks will be here any minute. Come, wake up."

She made no response. The sun had set; it was growing bitterly cold, and there was little protection under the crag. It was a place where cross winds met. Torn fragments from the sea of cloud below drove against the pinnacle. It was like a lofty headland breasting rolling surf. Frederic stood erect and sent his voice down through the smother in a great shout. It brought no answer, and he settled helplessly on the shelf beside her. It began to hail furiously, and he dropped his face, shielding it in his arms.

The storm passed and, rousing himself, he searched his pockets vainly for a match to light his remaining cigar. Later he went through them again, hoping to find a piece of chocolate—he had carried some that morning—but this, too, was without result. He fell to cursing the packer, for appropriating the port and tinned things that were missing at lunch-time. But after that he did not talk any more and, in a little while, he stretched himself beside the unconscious figure at the foot of the crag. A second cloud lifted in a flurry of snow. Every hidden canyon sent out innumerable currents of air, and gales, meeting, lifted the powdery crust in swirls, wrapping them in a white sheet. Finally, from far off, mingling with the skirling pipes of the wind came a different, human sound. And, presently, when the call—if call it was—was repeated, the man sat up and looked dully around. But he made no effort to reply. He waited, listening stupidly, and the cry did not reach him again. Then, his glance falling to the woman, a ray of intelligence leaped in his eyes. He rose on his knees and moved her so there was room for his own bulk between her body and the rock. He had then, when he stretched himself on the snow, a windbreak.

The wind rushed screaming into the vast spaces beyond the mountain top, and returning, met the opposing forces from the canyon and instantly became a whirlwind. It cut like myriads of teeth; it struck two-edged with the swish, slash of a sword; and it lifted the advancing cloud in a mighty swirl, bellied it as though it had been a gigantic sail, and shook from its folds a deluge of hailstones followed by snow. Through it all a grotesque shape that seemed sometimes a huge, abnormal beetle and sometimes a beast, worked slowly around the crag, now crawling, now rearing upright with a futile napping of stiff wings, towards the two human figures. It was Lucky Banks, come to rescue them.

A heavier blast threw him on his face, but he rose to his knees and, creeping close, squared his shoulders to protect the slighter body. At the same time the significance of the position of Morganstein's unconscious bulk struck him. "You rat!" he cried with smothered fury. "You damn rat!"