Dillon advanced and Stannard resumed: "Youth is romantic and sometimes exaggerates. Laura imagines her generosity and yours accounts for my starting on our adventure. Well, perhaps I'm slow and cautious, but now and then one recaptures a touch of one's boyish rashness. However, I mustn't philosophize. We must get off in a few minutes."
"I'll join you on the trail," said Dillon, who remarked that Stannard implied that he hesitated to go. Stannard had said something like that before, as if he wanted others to note that the plan was not his. All the same, it was not important, and Dillon took Laura's hand.
Five minutes afterwards the party started. The packers carried the heavy loads, the others the ice-axes, and Stevens and Stannard wore round their shoulders coils of Alpine rope. Where the trail turned they stopped for a moment and waved their hats, and then vanished in the trees.
Some time afterwards Laura saw a plume of black smoke roll across the pines and stole off to her room. She did not want Mrs. Dillon's comfort. Her father and her lover had started for the rocks, and if they paid for their rashness, she was accountable.
In the morning she got a jar, for a sergeant of the Royal North-West Police arrived at the hotel. He was polite but firm, and Laura saw she must brace up. Mrs. Dillon had gone with her to the rotunda and to know she had her help was some comfort.
"Mr. Stannard started for the mountains yesterday," the sergeant remarked. "He took a quantity of camp truck and two of your friends. Where did he go?"
"I don't altogether know his line," Laura replied. "When you climb high mountains you cannot make fixed plans. Much depends on the snow."
"Well, I expect Mr. Stannard stated where he meant to start?"
"Why, of course," said Mrs. Dillon. "He'd get off at the Green River depot."
The sergeant remarked her frankness, but thought she saw some frankness was indicated, because for him to find out where the party had got off was not hard.