'We must follow that poor devil; he is stark mad, and heaven only knows what he will do with the child.'
'With the child! why, you don't mean to say he has got the child?' cried one.
Nares was busy arranging something with the guard and didn't answer, but it was evident that the men agreed with him, and were prepared to obey him.
'Then you'll hand over Mr. Hales to Wharton, my stockman at Rosebud,' Nares said to the guard, 'and tell him to leave a horse at the station shanty for me. I'll be in, most likely, to-morrow.'
'You know this labourer is a relation of Wharton's, boss?' asked one of the railway men.
'No! is he?' was the reply.
'Yes, a nephew, they tell me, or something of that sort. Wharton will be wanting to come and help you, I guess.'
'Well, then, I'll tell you what to do. Don't say anything to my man. Mr. Hales can stay here at the cottage until I come back, and we'll come on together to-morrow. Good-bye.'
The guard shook hands, the crowd moved back to the train, the bell tolled as the cars began to move off, and in another minute Snap and Nares were left with one labourer, named Bromley (who had volunteered to help Nares); a solitary little group, with a crying child and an empty hut as the only signs of life around them, except for those ominous tracks leading away into the silence and the snow.
After some demur it was determined that Snap should be one of the search-party, and that a message should be left with the boy for his father, telling him to follow on Nares' track as fast as possible with food and blankets.