"I've no use for fooling around a schrund in the mist and we can't wait for daybreak," Deering remarked. "We must get back and make the timber line on the other side before we freeze."
Jimmy doubted if he could get back and shrank from the effort. He thought the buttress five or six hundred feet above him, and for a fresh, athletic man to get up in an hour was good climbing. But he was not fresh; his body was exhausted and he had borne a heavy nervous strain. All the same, to wait in the snow for daybreak was unthinkable.
They fronted the long climb and Jimmy, breathing hard and sometimes stumbling, made slow progress. He doubted if he could have got up the steepest pitch had not Deering helped him, and at another the Indian took his pack. They reached the top, and Deering studied the white slope that went down the other side. The moon had gone and thick cloud rolled about the heights.
"This lot peters out in a gravel bank near the snow-line. I guess we'll slide it," he said and vanished in the mist.
Jimmy braced his legs, pushed off and let himself go. In Switzerland he had studied the glissade, but when one carries a heavy load to balance on a precipitous slope is difficult. It looked as if Deering could not balance, because after a few moments Jimmy shot past an object that rolled in the snow. Then he himself lost control, his pack pulled him over, and he went head-foremost down hill. When he stopped the pitch was easier, and looking back he saw a belt of cloud three or four hundred feet above. He had gone through the cloud and when he turned his head he saw dark forest roll up from the valley in front. For all that, the highest trees were some distance off.
By and by the Indian and Deering arrived and soon afterwards the snow got thin. Stones covered the mountain-side and now and then a bank their feet disturbed slipped away and carried them down. At length, Deering, smashing through some juniper scrub, seized a small dead pine, and when Jimmy, breathless and rather battered, arrived, declared they had gone far enough. They had got fuel and water ran in the stones.
Half an hour afterwards, Jimmy sat down on thin branches in a hollow behind a rock. In front a fire snapped and the rock kept off the wind. The smell of coffee floated about the camp and the Indian was occupied with a frying-pan.
When Jimmy had satisfied his appetite he lighted his pipe. He was warm and the daunting sense of loneliness had gone. By and by Deering began to talk.
"When Stannard stated you had pulled out for the foothills I thought I'd better come along. He talked about your shoving across for the boundary, but I doubted if you could make it. Perhaps an Alpine Club party, starting from a base camp, with packers to relay supplies, could cross the rocks, but when your outfit's a little flour and a slab of pork it sure can't be done. My notion is, we'll get back from the railroad, pitch camp in a snug valley and hunt."
"But you have no grounds to hide from the police."