It was while they still consulted at this point that their fire was seen on Pilot Hill and reported to Bucks at the Brock car, from which the rapidly moving party had been seen only at long intervals during the morning.
The fire was the looked-for signal that the superintendent had been reached, and the word went from group to group of men up the hill. Through the strong glass that Glover had left with her, Gertrude could see the smoke, and the storming signals of the panting engines above her made sweeter music after she caught with her eye the faint column in the distant gap. Even her father, feeling still something like a conscript, brightened up at the general rejoicing. He had produced his own glass and let Gertrude with eager prompting help him to find the smoke. The moment the position of Glover's party was made definite, Bucks ordered the car run down the Hog's Back to a point so much closer that across the broad cañon, flanking Pilot on the south, they could make out with their glasses the figures of the three men and, when they began to move, the smaller figure of Morris Blood.
Callahan had joined his chief to watch the situation, and they speculated as to how the four would get out of the gulf in which they were completely hemmed. Gertrude and her father stood near.
The eyes of the two bronzed railroad men at her side were like pilot guides to Gertrude. When she lost the wayfarers in the gullies or along the narrow defiles that gave them passage between towering rocks, their eyes restored the plodding line. Callahan was the first to detect the change from the expected course. "They are working east," said he, after a moment's careful observation.
"East?" echoed Bucks. "You mean west."
Callahan hung to his glass. "No," he repeated, "east—and south. Here."
Bucks took the glass and looked a long time. "I do not understand," said he; "they are certainly working east. What can they be after, east? Well, they can't go very far that way without bridging the Devil's Cañon. Callahan," he exclaimed, with sure instinct, "they will head south. Walt now till they appear again."
He relinquished the glass to explain to Mr. Brock where next to look for them. There was a long interval during which they did not reappear. Then the little file emerging from the shadow of a rock skirted a field of snow straight to the south. There were but three men in line. One, a little ahead, breaking path; following, two large men tramping close together, the foremost stooping under the weight of a man lying face upward on his back, while the man behind supported the legs under his arms.
"They are carrying Morris Blood. He is hurt—that was to be expected. What?" exclaimed Bucks, hardly a moment afterward, "they are crossing the snow. Callahan, by heaven, they are walking for the south side of Pilot, that's what it means. It is a forced march; they are making for the mines."
Mount Pilot, from the crest that divides at Devil's Gap, rises abruptly in a three-faced peak, the pinnacle of which lies to the south. Several hundred feet above the base lie the group of gold-mines behind the mountain, and a short railroad spur blasted across the southern face runs to them from Glen Tarn. Below, the mountain wall breaks in long steps almost vertically to the base, toward which Glover's party was heading.