"I ought to have stayed. Now I think about it, Stannard rather persuaded me to go," Jimmy agreed and looked at Deering hard. "When you recently found out Stannard had gone to my help, why did you go after him?"
"For one thing, I knew he had not got a proper guide. I thought the job a man's job, and Stevens and Dillon are boys."
"Somehow I feel that's not all," said Jimmy and for a moment or two was very quiet. Then he resumed: "When Stannard and I were on the ledge you were at the corner. I was going to jump on the slab, but you shouted."
"Sometimes you're rash. When you jump on a rock, you want to know the rock is sound."
"The slab was not sound," said Jimmy in a hoarse voice. "Still I was on the rope and Stannard knew, if I went down, I might pull him off the ledge——"
He stopped and Deering saw he did not want to solve the puzzle. "It's done with and you're a stanch friend," he resumed. "Well, I'm very tired."
Deering gave him a sympathetic nod, and pulling his blanket round him, got down on a pile of twigs. Jimmy sat with his back against a log and looked into the gloom behind the black pine-tops. High up on the lonely rocks a rotten slab dropped to the gully, and, but for Deering's stanchness, he might have taken an awful plunge. In the meantime, the cold was keen, his body was exhausted and his brain was dull. He did not know much and did not want to know all. The thing was done with and he resolved to let it go. By and by he got down on the twigs by Deering, stretched his legs to the fire and went to sleep.
In the morning after breakfast the sergeant lighted his pipe and stopped the troopers, who had begun to roll up their packs.
"We won't break camp yet, boys," he said and turned to Deering. "Mr. Stevens can't stand for a long hike and my orders were to bring Stannard back."
"Sometimes the police orders do not go," said Deering dryly. "Until the snow melts nobody will bring Stannard back. He has cheated you."