"It's possible. I'm going to find out."
This was a logical determination; but, in spite of his recent suggestion, Carroll realized that he would have abandoned the search there and then, had the choice been left to him, in which he did not think he was singular. After all they had undergone and the risk they had run in leaving Vancouver, the shock of the disappointment was severe. He could have faced a failure to locate the spruce, with some degree of philosophical calm; but to find it at last, useless, was very much worse. He did not, however, expect his companion to turn back yet; before he desisted, Vane would search for and examine every unburned tree. What was more, Carroll would have to accompany him. He noticed that Vane was waiting for him to speak, and he decided that this was a situation which he would better endeavor to treat lightly.
"I think I'll have a smoke," he said. "I'm afraid any remarks I could make wouldn't do justice to the occasion. Language has its limits."
He sat down on the charred log and took out his pipe.
"A brûlée's not a nice place to wander about in when there's any wind," he proceeded; "and I've an idea there's some coming, though it's still enough now."
Shut in, as they were, in the deep hollow with the towering snows above them, it was impressively still; and, in conjunction with the sight of the black desolation, the deep silence reacted on Carroll's nerves. He longed to escape from it, to make a noise; though this, if done unguardedly, might bring more of the rampicks thundering down. He could hear tiny flakes of charcoal falling from them and, though the fire had long gone out, a faint and curious crackling, as if the dead embers were stirring. He wondered if it were some effect of the frost; it struck him as disturbing and weird.
"We'll work right round the brûlée," Vane decided. "Then I suppose we'd better head back for Vancouver, though we'll look at that cedar as we go down. Something might be made of it—I'm not sure we've thrown our time away."
"You'd never be sure of that. It isn't in you."
Vane disregarded this. A new, constructive policy was already springing up out of the wreck of his previous plans.
"There's a good mill site on the inlet, but as it's a long way from the railroad we'll have to determine whether it would be cheaper to tow the logs down or split them up on the spot. I'll talk it over with Drayton; he'll no doubt be useful, and there's no reason why he shouldn't earn his share."