"They've pulled freight. I could see the smoke of their fire—it was just about out. Not a horse in sight, or a man. There's no chance for a mistake, I'm afraid. I called and called, but no one answered."
The tears rushed to the girl's eyes, but she fought them back. There was an instant of strained silence. "And what does it mean?"
"I don't know. We'll get out someway——"
"Tell me the truth, Bill," the girl suddenly urged. "I can stand it. I will stand it—don't be afraid to tell me."
The man looked down at her in infinite compassion. "Poor little girl," he said. "What do you want to know?"
She didn't resent the words. She only felt speechlessly grateful and someway comforted,—as a baby girl might feel in her father's arms.
"Does it mean—that we've lost, after all?"
"Our lives? Not at all." She read in his face that this, at least, was the truth. "I'll tell you, Miss Tremont, just what I think it means. If we were on the other side of the river, and we had horses, we could push through and get out—easy enough. But we haven't got horses—even Buster is drowned—and it would be a hard fight to carry supplies and blankets on our backs, for the long hike down into Bradleyburg. It would likely be too much for you. Besides, the river lays between. In time we might go down to quieter waters and build a raft—out of logs—but the snow's coming thicker all the time. Before we could get it done and get across, we couldn't mush out—for the snows have come to stay and we haven't got snowshoes. We could rig up some kind of snowshoes, I suppose, but until the snow packs we couldn't make it into town. It's too long a way and too cold. In soft snow even a strong man can only go a little way—you sink a foot and have to lift a load of snow with every step. Every way we look there's a block. We're like birds, caught in a cage."
"But won't men—come to look for us?"
"I've been thinking about that. Miss Tremont, they won't come till spring, and then they'll likely only half look for us. I know this northern country. Death is too common a thing to cause much stir. Lounsbury will tell them we are drowned—no one will believe we could have gotten out of the canyon, dressed like we were and on a night like last night. If they thought we were alive and suffering, the whole male population would take a search party and come to our aid. Instead they know—or rather, they think they know—that we're dead. There won't be any horses, it will be a fool's errand, and mushing through those feet of soft snow is a job they won't undertake."