I went to the other cabin, where the wounded men had lain. Then I sat down on the nearest threshold, weak and numbed. The cabins were empty. Brack had removed our friends beyond our ken. We were deserted. But more sinister than that; the cabins had been stripped of their last morsel of food, of everything that might have been of assistance to us in maintaining existence in the wilderness.
XXXII
I sat there in the cabin doorway for a long time, the props upon which I had builded hope and confidence suddenly knocked away. George was gone; Dr. Olson was gone. And there was no trace of them left behind, no trace of where they had gone, or why, or how. They had disappeared from our ken. We were out of touch with them. And upon them had been built our hopes.
Far off on some hilltop a wolf barked suddenly. I pictured Brack with his sneering eyes laughing at me. It was all his work, of course. If it had not been—if the abandonment of the cabins had been accidental—Dr. Olson, knowing that I would return there sometime, would have managed to leave a note or sign to tell the why and where of the going.
But the captain, also knowing that we would come back to the cabins, had taken proper precautions. There was no note, no sign. There was no hope, no chance to escape him. That was the lesson he had prepared for us with these empty cabins.
The wolf barked again, and I thought of Betty alone in the cave and sprang up. And there was something selfish in the speed with which I traveled back over the ridge, for the nearness of her was a stay to my waning confidence and courage.
Nearing the cave I moved more cautiously, not wishing to blunder through the mask of brush we had made to hide the opening. Fumbling in the darkness I found the overhanging rock, and then the opening which I had left as a door in the brush. I paused a moment before crawling inside, and as I did so Betty’s voice came faintly from the canoe:
“Is that you, Gardy? And are you all right?”
“I am,” I replied, as I entered. “And you?”
“Fine and dandy. But—oh, you were away an awful long time.”