“And all the time Johnny kept getting sicker and sicker,” he said, “so that I got more frightened about him than about anything else. At night he would be out of his head, sometimes, and in the daytime he would just trudge along at my heels and never say a word. Only once, when I said that if we ever found the lake we might come out somewhere near Oscar Dansk’s house, he got furiously angry and made me promise that I would never ask him for help. I don’t know yet what idea he had in his poor confused head, but I had to promise, to quiet him.”
He told further of their growing weakness, of the shorter and shorter distances they could travel in a day, of a final afternoon when, having gone to shoot a partridge, he had come back and found his brother had disappeared.
“Perhaps I hadn’t realized until that minute how desperately ill he was. He had wandered off; I could see the storm coming and I looked and looked and called and called, but I couldn’t find him. I felt pretty hopeless, I can tell you.”
It was Nicholas who had discovered John Edmonds at last, lying insensible under a big tree near the foot of Jasper Peak. They had sat by him a long time, the boy and the dog, helpless and exhausted both of them. Dick had caught a glimpse of the cabin on the side of the mountain and had decided, when the storm broke, that they must get there at any cost.
“I carried Johnny on my back,” he said, “don’t ask me how, but some way or other we made it. I was so anxious to get him in out of the storm that it didn’t matter much where we went. I don’t think I had sense enough to mind a great deal even when I realized it was Jake’s cabin. We found something to eat, although we didn’t take more than we could possibly help. John seemed to revive a little, but still I was desperately anxious, and felt that I must do something, no matter what. I think I believed Two Rivers and Rudolm were much nearer than they are and I had not counted on the streams all being in flood. I could see the light from your cabin, but—well, I had promised. Now, I can understand that the promise was a foolish business, but your judgment isn’t quite so good when you are worn out and half starved, as when you are rested and fed. You don’t see things quite so clear.”
“But weren’t you afraid of Jake’s coming back?” Hugh asked.
Dick, it appeared, did not have such horror of the Pirate of Jasper Peak as had Hugh. He did not even yet seem to suspect that the half-breed had been concerned in their being lost in the forest nor had he heard the full tale of what Jake had done to Oscar Dansk. One anxiety had overcome the other and he had left his brother, ordering Nicholas back when he would have come too, and finally shutting him in so that John Edmonds should not feel himself quite alone.
“But almost as soon as I was gone he broke out and went across the valley to you,” Dick concluded. “Nicholas had more sense than I had, didn’t you, old fellow?”
The big dog, lying on his side before the hearth, opened one eye and beat gently on the floor with his plumy tail at mention of his name. Then he heaved a great sigh, stretched himself luxuriously to the fire and fell asleep again, completely satisfied that those he loved were safe at last.
Dick, also, being assured that at least his brother was no worse, went away to sleep off some of the exhaustion of his journey through the forest, and Hugh was left to sit alone, still watching for Oscar’s return and wondering more and more anxiously why he did not come. The little cabin was peaceful and absolutely quiet except for the ticking of the clock and the deep breathing of the dog at his feet, but far from peaceful were Hugh’s racing thoughts. Where had his comrade been during that furious storm? What had happened to keep him so long? Oh, if he only had not parted from Oscar in such churlish ill-nature how much easier it would be to bear this anxious waiting!