He left the room and Mappin lighted a cigar. He felt somewhat nervous, as if he had undergone a strain.
"If Allinson gets through, I'll allow he's the better man," he mused.
CHAPTER XV
THE SILVER LODE
A half-breed stood on the river bank beside his dog-team while Andrew handed Carnally the packs from the sled. It was late in the afternoon, the valley was swept by driving snow, and the men's hands were so numbed that they found it difficult to strap on their heavy loads. The ice was several feet in thickness on the deeper pools, but the stream ran strong along the opposite shore, and its frozen surface was rough, and broken in places by pools of inky water.
"It would save some trouble if we made our caches among these boulders," Graham suggested.
"That's so," agreed Carnally. "Still I guess it would be safer on the other side, where we'll strike it sooner coming back. It's wise to take no chances in this country."
They were loaded at last, and the gorge looked very desolate when the half-breed vanished with his dogs beyond the summit of the bank. He was not a man of much conversational powers, but they had found his company pleasant in the grim solitudes. Andrew had hired him at an outlying Hudson Bay factory, where he had had no trouble in obtaining food. The fur trade was languishing thereabout, and prospectors for timber and minerals were made welcome. The Scot in charge of the lonely post had, however, no dogs for sale, though he engaged to transport a limited quantity of provisions to a point which one of the company's half-breeds, despatched on another errand, would pass with his team.
Andrew considered Carnally's caution well justified. Their supply of food was scanty, and the journey attended by risks enough; but he could sympathize with Graham. It was snowing hard, the wind was rising, and there was no sign of a camping-place in all the desolation. They had gone a long way since sunrise, and were too tired to think of lengthening the journey by looking for a better place to cross the river. They went forward, carefully avoiding the hummocks, and winding around the larger cracks. Andrew was too occupied in picking his way to notice that Graham had fallen some distance behind; but when he had skirted a tall hummock, a sharp cry reached him, and he stopped in alarm. He could see nothing except a stretch of rugged ice and a high white bank fading into the driving snow. Their companion had disappeared.
"Guess he was straight behind us!" cried Carnally, as they turned back, running.