"You say you never saw him, Jim?" asked Maitland.
"I repeat I never met him," said Armstrong, flushing suddenly, "but I knew his wife."
"Yes, you did that—" drawled the old mountaineer.
"What do you mean?" flashed Armstrong.
"I mean that you knowed her, that's all," answered the old man with an innocent air that was almost childlike.
When the others woke up in the morning Armstrong's sleeping bag was empty. Kirkby crawled out of his own warm nest, opened the door and peered out into the storm.
"Well," he said, "I guess the damn fool has beat God this time; it don't look to me as if even He could save him now."
"But we must go after him at once," urged Maitland.
"See for yourself," answered the old man, throwing wider the door. "We've got to wait 'til this wind dies down unless we give the Almighty the job o' lookin' after three instid o' one."