The days were very short then. There was but a gleam of sunlight at noon, and as this faded to the south behind an ice-clad mountain, a strong breeze arose which roared through the tree-tops. There was a wildness and weirdness about its dirge-like roar which seemed to me quite in keeping with what had happened.
I had taken no food all day. I had not been inside the hut. I could not for long muster courage to enter it. To gaze upon my lost friend's features seemed impossible—the idea of stopping for any time in the same place with his poor body was beyond me, yet I knew I must do something. Food at least I must procure for myself and Patch; if we had this I believed that we could exist beside the huge fire I had built until I grew calmer, and could decide on some course of action. I put off doing anything though as long as possible, and not until it was quite dark did I creep into our dismal abode.
I trod gently, with awe, for I could not divest myself of the idea that poor Meade could hear me, that my dear friend was at least present in spirit. But truly I cannot tell what I thought or what I felt.
The fire was out. I lit the lamp. I gazed fearfully around—avoiding the face, white and drawn, which I knew was amongst the pile of bedding there. Why was this? Why does one naturally dread to look upon a dead face? Surely I had got to love my friend, and to know that he loved me. There was no reason for this unwillingness to look, but so it was then, and so it usually is.
I threw a blanket over his poor body, snatched a rug up, a loaf of bread, a piece of cooked venison, some tea and sugar, and hastened out again, closing the door securely.
It was blowing harder now; fine snow was being whirled through the forest and down the creek, which had long since ceased to flow. It was freezing very hard; everything was ice-bound; my fire gave but little warmth. What could I do?
Really I was so utterly cast down, so despairing, that I was reckless. It seemed to me just then that nothing mattered, and that I too should soon die, and lie as Meade did, until perhaps long afterwards some wandering prospector would find our bones, our gold, and our belongings; but our real story, or who we were, would never be known.
Patch ate the food I gave him, and I managed to swallow something: then we crouched, he and I, with the rug round us. He slept, but I was thinking—thinking.
The cold increased, the bitter wind was piercing. I roused myself to pile on fuel. A gust of exceeding sharpness seemed to shrivel me, and it flashed through me that another such blast would end me.
For a second I thought, "So much the better"; but at the same moment, like a vision, there passed across my half-benumbed consciousness a picture of what my dear dead friend had told me about his mother and his sisters, and the dearest one of all. I knew what he had said about the benefit the gold that we had found would be to them, and how I had promised him to fight hard to get it to them should he not recover.