Dirk’s momentary outburst passed as soon as it had come, leaving him heartily ashamed of his despair. He should not be the one to lose hope; now, if ever, he must show the manhood that was in him.
He clapped Brick Ryan on the back, and tried to summon a smile. “There, old man, it’s all right. This whole mess is really my fault—I was dumb enough to let myself get kidnaped in the first place. If you think that crutch of yours will work, take a good drink and let’s hike.”
Brick set off eagerly, stumping across the creek and manfully following Dirk’s leadership through the forest, trying not to drag his tightly-bound foot or to knock it against the stumps and boulders that littered the earth. Dirk kept looking backward to see how his friend was progressing, stopping now and again to lend an arm in crossing some marshy bog or climbing a steep bank. He tried to keep his bearings and follow a straight line that eventually would bring them out upon high ground from which he hoped to spy the lake, the only landmark that either of them knew.
He forced Brick to stop frequently, for otherwise the red-haired lad would have gamely plodded on until he dropped. During one of the pauses, Brick asked: “Say, since it looks like we’re lost for certain, what about buildin’ a smoky signal fire? Maybe if the gang is around, they’ll see it and come to help.”
“I thought of that. But we don’t know that they are still around. Don’t forget they think we’re drowned. And we do know that Mink will be looking for us. A smoke signal would give us away—he’d get us before anybody else could find where we were.”
On, on they went at the maddeningly slow pace that made their journey seem like a dream, one of those nightmares in which the sleeper is pursued by unknown terror, but must stagger onward like a man walking under water. The sun dropped lower and lower above the endless tree tops.
Brick sank down, and threw his crutch away from him with a groan.
“It’s no use!” he panted. “I can’t go on, Van. My foot’s achin’ like it was stung by a million bumblebees. If I had somethin’ to eat, maybe I could get a little further, but gollies, this hike is too much for me. You go on,” he pleaded, “wherever you can go, and leave me—leave me——No half-breed in any old canoe will ever turn me over and shoot me in the leg——” His crazy jargon trailed off into a feverish moan.
It was painfully clear to Dirk that his friend’s strength was completely gone, and that he was already on the fringes of delirium. The shadows were lengthening on the mountainside where they lay; during the last hour they had been climbing steadily. Soon it would be dark.
The boy looked about him helplessly. Was this the end? The end of that long trail the two comrades had followed together, through capture and fire and flight and injury——He stood on a rocky shoulder of mountain in trackless wilds, with his hurt friend huddled at his feet. If he had a part of the skill of Sagamore Carrigan, he might, even with only his jack-knife to help him, rig up some sort of shelter against the coming cold night, might find some wild food or trap a small beast. But he could lean on no other person now; he was alone with his helpless charge. A keen wind swept up from the valleys below. It was Dirk Van Horn’s dark hour.