I cried out in delight and lingered to enjoy the grandeur of the spectacle.
Beneath me I saw Jacqueline waiting, a tiny figure upon the snow. My heart smote me with a deep sense of reproach that I had put her to so much sacrifice. But I had seen the valley between those mountains, the only possible entrance to that mysterious land. Nothing could fail us now.
I cast my eyes beyond her toward the mist-wrapped tops of the far Laurentians and the plains.
And a sense of an inevitable fate came over me as I perceived far away a tiny, crawling ant upon the snows—Simon Leroux's dog sleigh.
I went back to the little, patient figure that was waiting for me, and I took up my pack again and told her nothing. She stepped bravely out beside me, frozen, fatigued, but willing because I bade her. She did not ask anything of me.
The sun dipped lower, and far away I heard the howl of the solitary wolf again.
My mind had been working very fast during that journey down the hill, and long before I reached Jacqueline I had resolved that she should know nothing of the pursuit until the moment came when she must be told.
That the pursuer was Leroux there could be no possible doubt. He had evidently passed the sleigh, and was undoubtedly pressing forward, elated and confident of our capture. But he must still be at least a dozen miles away.
He could not reach us that night and he could hardly travel by night. We should have a half day's start of him in the morning.
I gripped my pistols as we strode along.