When Gale had regained her breath and felt in a measure rested she settled Toto comfortably in the crook of her arm and started out again. Nearly all night she trudged slowly through the snow and moonlight. Only the knowledge that she must keep moving kept her on her feet at all. She wanted to lie down and rest and sleep. Her eyelids felt weighted down. She was almost asleep on her feet. At last she submitted, as she must have in time, and sat down, her back against a sheet of rock to rest. The rest stretched into a sound sleep. Her head fell forward on her knees and Toto, too, slept peacefully by her side.
The sun was high when she awoke and started to her feet only to abruptly sit down again. Her muscles were stiff and arms and legs cramped and numb. Toto yawned, shook himself and ran a few paces and back to her side. Gale rubbed her arms and legs vigorously and stood up to survey their position.
Away to her right rose a cliff of rock and ice. Gale remembered she had been able to see this cliff with the peculiar formation of a man’s head from her window on clear days. Antoinette had laughingly referred to it as the Lonesome Man. It was the only jutting rise in their immediate horizon and the ice and rock had formed to make a perfect man’s head. Gale started in the direction of the Lonesome Man. It was her opinion that if she could climb upon the rocks she might be able to see the cottage in the spread of world at her feet. Then it would be a simple matter to steer a straight course for home.
But the Lonesome Man was farther away than it had at first appeared. Its very largeness gave it a sense of being close when in reality it was a mile away. Gale stubbornly clung to her first idea to climb upon it. Otherwise she would have absolutely no course of action and she would not be able to see the cottage from where she was on the ground. Toto trotted obediently by her side, looking up from time to time to observe the expressions on her face.
“Hungry, Toto?” she asked once and he barked in response. “So am I,” she declared laughingly. “But don’t worry, it won’t be long now. Once we are on Lonesome Man and can see the cottage—we shall be home soon then.”
Toto seemed to understand for he cavorted gaily, falling over himself in his exuberance.
It was the middle of the day when they came to Lonesome Man and Gale felt a gnawing hunger. The sun was directly overhead and she was keenly anxious to get back home. Antoinette and François would be anxious, that she knew.
The first step on Lonesome Man was a huge rock which must be gotten up on before one could continue up to a point of vantage where the ground would lay revealed openly. Every tree, every stream, every cottage for miles could be seen from the top of Lonesome Man’s head.
Gale, after some difficulty, managed to mount the huge rock which was the first step in her ascent. She stopped to rest and waved at Toto on the ground below. The dog set up a howl. He looked so plaintive and lonesome and howled so indiscreetly as to awaken a hundred echoes that Gale had no course but to come down after him. It took quite a while until both she and Toto had again negotiated the first step.
“See all the time we’ve wasted,” she complained to the dog, sitting beside him and letting her legs dangle over the rock, “just because you wouldn’t be good and stay on the ground.”