They made supper at sunset among the last of the dwindling pines; and then lay awake shivering part of the night, for a nipping wind came down from the snow, and they were very wet and cold. It rained again the next day and most of the following one. Still, they spent the two days crawling along the farther side of the range, for when they had struggled through the snow in a rift between two peaks, a great wall of rock that fell almost sheer cut them off from the next valley. Somewhat to Weston’s astonishment, Grenfell now showed little sign of flagging. He seemed intent and eager; and when they stopped, gasping, where the rock fell straight down beneath their feet to the thick timber that climbed from a thread-like river, he sat down and gazed steadily below him.
“They’re hemlocks along that bend?” he asked, pointing to a ridge of somber green that rose above the water.
“Yes,” said Weston, “I think they are.”
Grenfell straightened himself suddenly.
“My sight’s not as good as yours, but I seemed to know they must be. Can you make out any Douglas firs in the thicker timber?”
“Yes,” said Weston, excitedly, “there’s a spire or two higher than the rest. You recognize the place?”
His companion sat still with signs of tension in his face, and it was clear that he was racking his befogged brain. The few weeks of abstinence and healthful toil had made a change in him, but one cannot in that space of time get rid of the results of years of indulgence; and under stress of excitement the man became confused and fanciful.
“I’m not sure. I’m trying to think,” he said, laying a lean, trembling hand on Weston’s arm. “Did you never feel that there was something you ought to recollect about a spot which you couldn’t have seen before?”
Weston was in no mood to discuss questions of that kind, though the curious sensation was not altogether unfamiliar to him.
“There’s only one way you could have known there was hemlock yonder,” he asserted.