Chan too had found himself inclining toward this latter belief; without Ray's energy and ambition he had less to keep him fronted to the chase. Neilson, however, was not yet ready to turn back. He too feared Ben's attack, but already in the twilight of advancing years, he did not regard physical danger in the same light as these two younger men. Besides, he was made of different stuff. The safety of his daughter was the one remaining impulse in his life.
And more and more, in the chill August nights, the talk about the camp fire took this trend: the folly of pushing on. It was better to turn back and wait his chances to strike again, Ray argued, than to walk bald-faced into death. Sometime Ben must return to the claim: a chance might come to lay him low. Besides, ever it seemed more probable that the river had claimed him.
One rainy, disagreeable morning, as they camped beside the river near the mouth of a small creek, affairs reached their crisis. They had caught and saddled the horses; Ray was pulling tight the last hitch. Chan stood beside him, speaking in an undertone. When he had finished Ray cursed explosively in the silence.
Neilson turned. He seemed to sense impending developments. "What now?" he asked.
"I'm not going on, that's what it is," Ray replied. "Neilson, it's two against one—if you want to go on you can—but Ray and I are going back. That devil's dead. Beatrice is, too—sure as hell. If they ain't dead, he'll get us. I was a fool ever to start out. And that's final."
"You're going back, eh—scared out!" Neilson commented coldly.
"I'm going back—and don't say too much about being scared out, either."
"And you too, Chan? You're against me, too?"
Chan cursed. "I'd gone a week ago if it'd been me. "We knew the way home, at least."
The old man looked a long time into the river depths. Only too well he realized that their decision was final. But there was no answer, in the swirling depths, to the question that wracked his heart: whether or not in these spruce-clad hills his daughter still lived. It could only murmur and roar, without shaping words that human ears could grasp, never relieving the dreadful uncertainty that would be his life's curse from henceforth. He sighed, and the lines across his brow were dark and deep.