"Then maybe we'll reach there by to-morrow night."
"Let us hope so, lad. O' course you must remember we've got the wust part o' this journey to go."
"Perhaps we'll catch Tom before we get to Lion Head," suggested Dick.
"Not by the way he has been traveling," answered his brother. "It does beat the nation how he and that Furner have been able to get over the ground."
On the top of the hill the wind was blowing a regular gale and the boys and the old miner were glad enough to go down on the other side, where they would be somewhat sheltered. But even below it was cold, and the air seemed to strike to their very backbones.
"Winter is comin' all right enough," announced Jack Wumble. "We'll be lucky if we git out o' here afore it catches us."
They trudged along until all were too weary to walk another step. They were keeping their eyes open for a spot where they might camp for the night, when Dick uttered a cry.
"Look! They must have remained here last night!"
The others gazed to where he pointed and saw, in a shelter of the rocks, the remains of a campfire. Beside the ashes lay a part of a broken strap and also some fine shavings from a stick.
"Ike Furner's mark," remarked Wumble, pointing to the shavings. They had been told by several men that one of Furner's habits was to whittle a stick. He never rested and talked but what he got out his jackknife and started to cut on a bit of wood. At another campfire, two days back, they had come across a heap of just such whittlings.