The swift motion had chilled them; icicles clung to their hair and beard; each could hardly see the dark figures of the others in the dense umbrageous undergrowth as they recognised the spot they sought and called a halt.
It was the mouth of the cave; they could hear the sound of the dark cold water as it rippled in the vaulted place where the dammed current rose now half way to the roof.
Their wretched prisoner, understanding this fact and the savage substitute for the rifle, made a despairing struggle.
'Lemme git a holt of him, Hi,' said Pete, his teeth chattering, his numbed arms stretched up in the darkness to lay hold on his victim.
'Hyar he be,' gasped the parson.
There was another frantic struggle as they tore the doomed man from the horse; a splash, a muffled cry—he was cast headlong into the black water. A push upon a great boulder hard by—it fell upon the cavity with a crash, and all hope of egress was barred.
Then, terrorized themselves, the men mounted their horses; each, fleeing as if from pursuit, found his way as best he might out of the dark wilderness.
One might not know what they felt that night when the rain came down on the roof. One might not dare to think what they dreamed.
The morning broke, drear and clouded, and full of rain, and hardly less gloomy than the night. The snow, tarnished and honeycombed with dark cellular perforations, was melting and slipping down the ravines. The gigantic icicles encircling the crags fell now and then with a resounding crash. The drops from the eaves dripped monotonously into the puddles below. The roof leaked. Sol's bridle-hand had been frozen the night before in the long swift ride.
But the sun came out again; the far mountains smiled in a blue vagueness that was almost a summer garb. The relics of the snow exhaled a silvery haze that hung airily about the landscape. Only the immaculate whiteness of those lofty regions of the balds withstood the thaw, and coldly glittered in wintry guise.