Graham told him and for a few moments Deering pondered. Then he said, "It's awkward! Stannard knows where Jimmy is, and he'll hit up the pace. I reckon the police don't know and must look for his tracks. If we hustle, we'll run up against the gang."
The difficulty was obvious and Peter frowned.
"We might get by their camp in the dark. We'd see the fire."
"I doubt," Deering rejoined. "If the boys make a fire, they'll make it where the light is hid. They don't want to put Jimmy wise."
"Well?" said Peter. "What is your plan?"
Deering laughed, a noisy laugh, for now he had started, his hesitation vanished.
"We'll trust our luck and shove ahead. In the morning we'll get up the rocks and look about. I've brought my glasses. Let's get going."
Graham gave them directions and when they climbed a steep hill they found the valley. The ground was broken and in places covered by tangled brush, but they made progress and at daybreak labored across the snow to the top of a spur. Deering sat on his pack and used his prismatic glasses.
Gray cloud floated about the mountain slopes, but the high peaks were sharp and began to shine in the rising sun. Some were rose-pink and some were yellow; the hollows between their broken tops were gray and blue. A map of the mountains occupied a wall of the hotel rotunda, and Deering, using his glasses, imagined it roughly accurate.
"I expect the blue gap is the head of the valley," he remarked and when Peter nodded resumed: "We'll allow Stannard joined Jimmy ahead of the police and took him along. We have got to hit their line and this is not as hard as it looks. They can't steer for the shoulder of the big peak; the rocks won't go and I see an ugly ice-fall on the glacier. I reckon I'd head back, obliquely, for the col, up the long arrête."