"You can't cross the ridge in the dark and the cold's going to be fierce," Peter remarked.
"That is so. I doubt if Stannard can make the neck, but if he gets there, he must wait for morning. Maybe we'll find a hole in the rocks."
Peter said nothing. He had engaged to go where the other went and must try to make good, although the road was daunting. In thick timber, a bushman can front biting cold; but on the high, icy rocks one could not make camp and light a fire. If their luck were very good, they might find a hole behind a stone, in which they must wait for daybreak and try not to freeze.
He put out the fire and when they went through the wood pondered gloomily. To reach the neck would cost them much; but to get there was not all. They must get down on the other side, and, for the most part, the mountain tops were tremendous precipices. Peter rather thought the neck opened on a glacier, but sometimes a glacier is broken by awkward ice-falls.
All the same, Peter set his mouth and pushed ahead. In the valley, he could hit up the pace for Deering, but he imagined to follow the big fellow on the rocks was another thing. When a bushman took the rocks he went to shoot big-horn and bear. The mountain clubmen studied climbing as one studies the ball-game.
XXIX
HELD UP
A few pale stars were in the sky and the moon was over a vague, gray peak. Deering shivered, beat his numbed hands, and looked about. The frost was keen and he had not thought he could sleep, but when he looked about before the stars were bright and the moon was not above the peak. In front, the buttress cut the sky, and although the rocks were indistinct, he saw the belt of snow Stannard had crossed. Since Stannard had got his party up the buttress, Deering imagined he could get up; but the rocks were awkward.
Deering wore the railroad man's skin coat and a thick Hudson's Bay blanket. For climbing their weight was an embarrassment, but he would sooner carry the load than freeze. Although he lay with his shoulders against Jardine, he was numb, and the outside of the blanket sparkled with frost. A tilted slab partly covered them, but the gravel in the hole was frozen and Deering's hip-joint hurt. The worst trouble was, when he was very cold his brain got dull and he hated to use effort. Yet effort was needed, for day had begun to break and he must cross the neck by dark. To stop another night on the high rocks was unthinkable and he knew his luck might turn. If thick snow fell or a strong wind blew, he and Peter would stay on the rocks for good.
Moreover, Jimmy was in front, and Deering thought Jimmy ran a daunting risk. He ought to get up and start, but he shrank from the frost, and for a minute or two he weighed his grounds for doubting Stannard. Jimmy owed Stannard a large sum and had insured his life. If he went over a precipice, the company would pay Stannard. Deering admitted the argument looked ridiculous; Stannard was highly cultivated, rather extravagant than greedy, and not at all the man to plan a revolting crime. Yet he had not engaged a proper guide and his companions were trustful young fellows whom he could mislead. Moreover, he had gone down into a snow-swept gully to help Leyland and knew this would weigh. Stannard had then expected Jimmy to marry Laura.