“Well,” said Weston, simply, “I could find water once upon a time. I know that, because I’ve done it.”
“Don’t you need a hazel fork? You can’t get one here.”
“I don’t think the hazel matters. The power is in the man. I can cut a fork out of something.”
Devine made a little gesture which seemed expressive of resignation.
“Well,” he said, “whether we go on or go back we have to have a drink. That’s a sure thing; and I feel, like you, that I want it before we set about the work that’s awaiting us.”
After that they both sat still again. They had to decide whether they would go back or go on, and both of them realized what the decision would be. Their guide had left them, and the last expectation of finding the lead had melted away. At first the sight of his dead comrade had driven all other thoughts from Weston’s mind, but now he was compelled to admit that he had wasted time and money on a delusion. That perhaps was no great matter in itself, but it made it clear that all he could look for was to earn food and shelter as a packer, logging-hand, or wandering laborer. Impassable barriers divided Ida Stirling from a man of that kind, and he dare no longer dream of the possibility of tearing them down. At last, and the knowledge was very bitter, he was face to face with defeat. He forgot for the moment that Grenfell lay just beyond the tangled undergrowth. He gazed straight in front of him, with a hard hand clenched and a look in his wavering eyes that puzzled his companion. At length he raised himself wearily to his feet. After all, the needs of the body would not be denied, and, as Devine had said, before they set about the task that awaited them they must drink.
“Well,” he said hoarsely, “I’m going to cut a fork.”
He smashed back through the undergrowth toward the pines, unlashed the ax from the horse’s back, and, though he was never afterward sure whether he cut it from a young fir or a bush of juniper, Devine came upon him some time later trimming a forked twig with a short stem where the two slender branches united. The surveyor glanced at it and smiled.
“Any water that ran into this hollow must have come from the range,” he said. “We’ll try close beneath it and give the thing a show.”
They did as he suggested, and his expression was sardonically incredulous when Weston proceeded along the foot of the hillside, where the ground was a little clearer, with a branch of the fork clutched in each hand. The pointed stem was directed almost horizontally in front of him, and it remained in that position for about twenty minutes, when he lowered it with a gesture of discouragement.