Again he resumed the slow scouting forward, more keenly strung up than ever. The air seemed to be growing dim, though the fog was certainly clearing. It came upon him that it must be evening. He had forgotten the hours; he had lost all track of time, and did not know whether it was still the same day that he had fallen into the glacier. It might have been the next day, or the next. In fact, he felt as if whole ages had elapsed since that tumble into the crevice.
He stared up the obscure slope, where the fog cleared, and closed, and cleared vaguely in the dusk. It was useless to pursue Carroll in the dark, and might be suicidal. The fugitive could not get away, especially since he was wounded. He was without food. He could be captured the next morning. Lang stood out in the open and shouted.
“Carroll! Carroll! Come out. Surrender. Give back the stones and we’ll call it off.”
His voice echoed weirdly up the hillside, but there was no answer. He shouted again, at the utmost pitch of his voice.
All at once he remembered that the magazine of his rifle could not contain more than one or two more cartridges, and he had no more in his pockets. This was the conclusive touch. He turned and walked back toward the sea, not without a sense of nervous expectancy, and a quick readiness to look back.
But nothing molested. He passed his old camp, where the fire still smoldered, went down to the foot of the glacier and climbed over the piled snow into the valley. From the beach he saw dimly a series of yellowish lights at no great distance. He hailed, and an answer came instantly in Morrison’s deep voice.
CHAPTER XX
IN HIS OWN NET
The Chita was moored a little way down the beach of the bay, with her dinghy attached to shore and rail so as to make a gangway to the land. Lang hoisted himself aboard. A big figure loomed up on the deck, and a big bony hand was thrust out to him.
“Did you get him?” Morrison demanded anxiously.
“No, I didn’t,” Lang responded. “I shot at him twice. Afraid I missed him. It was getting too dark and——”