“I’m afraid you’re going to have a very rough journey. The track’s surveyed and blazed; they’re working at it in sections, but there are big gaps where nothing has been done yet, and they have been withdrawing a large number of men. Crossing the mountains is a tough proposition in the winter.”
“Kermode didn’t seem afraid of it.”
“He started two weeks ago, when there had been less snow. You’ll find it difficult to get through the passes now.”
“Anyway,” declared Prescott, “I have to get through.”
Ferguson pondered the simple answer. It was, he thought, typical of the man, and the contrast between him and his friend became more forcible. Kermode exercised a curious charm. His gay, careless nature made him excellent company, and he had a strain of somewhat eccentric genius; but he was irresponsible and erratic, one could not depend on him. The Canadian was of different temperament: slower, less subject to impulse, but more stubborn and more consistent. When dealing with him one would know what to expect. He would reason out a purpose and then unwaveringly adhere to it.
“Well,” the clergyman said, “you may have to cross a big province; and though it’s warmer as you get down to the coast, the weather’s often nearly arctic among the ranges, while it’s only here and there that you’ll have a chance to find shelter. It’s a trip that’s not to be undertaken rashly. You’ll need a fur coat, among other things, and I think I can get you one. You had better take a couple of days’ rest so as to start fresh. And now it’s time for bed.”
Prescott spent the next day with him and left the camp at daybreak on the second morning. He wore a long coat, from which the fur had peeled in patches, and carried a heavy pack besides a small ax. His boots were dilapidated, but he had been unable to replace them. There was sharp frost and when he boarded a construction train he looked back at the camp with keen regret; he shrank from the grim wilds ahead. A haze of smoke hung over the clustering shacks, lights still blinked among them, and already the nipping air was filled with sounds of activity. Then the locomotive shrieked and he turned his face toward the lonely white hills as the cars moved forward with a jerk. It was bitterly cold, though he lay down out of the wind behind the load of rails, where hot cinders rattled about him and now and then stung his face.
At noon the train stopped. Alighting with cramped limbs, Prescott saw that the rails went no farther. A few shacks stood forlornly upon the hillside, a frozen river wound like a white riband through the gorge beneath, and ahead lay a sharply rising waste of rock and snow. His path led across it, and after a word or two with the men on the line he began his journey, breaking through the thin, frozen crust. The sounds behind him grew fainter and ceased; the trail of dingy smoke which had followed him melted away, and he was alone in the wilderness. His course was marked, however, by a pile of stones here, a blazed tree there, and he plodded on all day. When night came he found a hollow free from snow beneath a clump of juniper, and lay awake, shivering under his blankets. White peaks and snow-fields were wrapped in deathly silence: there was not even the howl of a prowling wolf or the splash of falling water.
Rising at dawn, almost too cold to move, he could find no dry wood to make a fire and had serious trouble in getting on his frozen boots; and after a hurried meal he set out again. It was some time before he felt moderately warm, but with a short rest at noon, he held on until evening was near, when he camped in a deep rift among the rocks filled with small firs. Here he found dry branches, and made his supper, sitting between a sheltering stone and a welcome fire. Soon afterward, he lay down and slept until the piercing cold awakened him near dawn. The fire had burned out to a few red embers; he had some trouble in stirring it into life, and it was bright daylight when he resumed his journey.
He was too tired and generally too cold to retain any clear impression of the next few days’ march. There were ranks of peaks above, glittering at times against an intensely blue sky, but more often veiled in leaden cloud, while rolling vapor hid their lower slopes. He skirted tremendous gorges, looked up great hollows filled with climbing trees, followed winding valleys, and at length limped into sight of a lonely camp at the foot of a crag. The light was fading when he reached it, though a lurid sunset glowed behind the black firs on the crest of a ridge, and the place had a desolate look. Most of the shacks were empty, there were rings of branches with a litter of old cans about them where tents had been pitched, but a few toiling figures were scattered about a strip of track. It was comforting to see them, but Prescott was too jaded to notice what they were doing.