“For the little Sun Loon,” repeated Uncle Bill gravely. “And hang on as long as you can.” Then he shook hands with Toy and divided the matches.
The old Chinaman turned his face to the wall of the tent and lay quite still as the two went out and tied the flap securely behind them.
It did not take Sprudell long to realize that Uncle Bill was correct in his assertion that he would have been lost alone in fifteen yards. He would have been lost in less than that, or as soon as the full force of the howling storm had struck him and the wind-driven snow shut out the tent. He had not gone far before he wished that he had done as Uncle Bill had told him and wrapped his feet in “Californy socks.” The strips of gunny sacking which he had refused because they looked bunglesome he could see now were an immense protection against cold and wet. Sprudell almost admitted, as he felt the dampness beginning to penetrate his waterproof field boots, that there might still be some things he could learn.
He gasped like a person taking a long, hard dive into icy water when they plunged into the swirling world which shut out the tent they had called home. And the wind that took his breath had a curious, piercing quality that hurt, as Uncle Bill had said, like breathing darning needles. “The White Death!” Literally it was that. Panting and quickly exhausted, as he “wallered snow to his neck,” T. Victor Sprudell began seriously to doubt if he could make it.
“Aire you comin’?” There was no sympathy, only impatience, in the call which kept coming back with increasing frequency, and Sprudell was longing mightily for sympathy. He had a quaint conceit concerning his toes, not being able to rid himself of the notion that when he removed his socks they would rattle in the ends like bits of broken glass; and soon he was so cold that he felt a mild wonder as to how his heart could go on pumping congealed blood through the auricles and ventricles. It had annoyed him at first when chunks of snow dropped from overhanging branches and lodged between his neck and collar, to trickle down his spine; but shortly he ceased to notice so small a matter. In the start, when he had inadvertently slipped off a buried log and found himself entangled in a network of down timber, he had struggled frantically to get out, but now he experienced not even a glimmer of surprise when he stepped off the edge of something into nothing. He merely floundered like a fallen stage horse to get back, without excitement or any sense of irritation. After three exhausting hours or so of fighting snow, his frenzy lest he lose sight of Uncle Bill gave place to apathy. When he fell, he even lay there—resting.
Generally he responded to Griswold’s call; if the effort was too great, he did not answer, knowing the old man would come back. That he came back swearing made no difference, so long as he came back. He had learned that Griswold would not leave him.
When he stumbled into a drift and settled back in the snow, it felt exactly like his favorite leather chair by the fire-place in the Bartlesville Commercial Club. He had the same cozy sensation of contentment. He could almost feel the crackling fire warming his knees and shins, and it required no great stretch of the imagination to believe that by simply extending his hand he could grasp a glass of whisky and seltzer on the wide arm-rest.
“What’s the matter? Aire you down ag’in?”
How different the suave deference of his friends Abe Cone and Y. Fred Smart to the rude tone and manner of this irascible guide! Mr. Sprudell fancied that by way of reply he smiled a tolerant smile, but as a matter of fact the expression of his white, set face did not change.
“Great cats! Have I got to go back and git that dude?” The intervening feet looked like miles to the tired old man.