“We’ll after them, Christopher!” he shouted. “They’ve got her! It’s just as you’ve figured it. They’ve got her! She will die of fright, man! I don’t dare to think of it!” He was rushing away. Christopher called to him.
“Just which way was you thinkin’ of goin’?” he asked, with mild sarcasm. “I can put queer things together in my mind so’s to make ’em fit pretty well,” went on the old man, “but jest which way to go chasin’ a lunatic and a fool in these big woods ain’t marked down on this snow plain enough so I can see it.”
Wade, the cord of the moose-sled in his trembling hands, turned and stared dismally at Straight. The old man slowly came away from the hovel, his nose in the air, as though he were sniffing for inspiration.
“The nearest place,” he said, thinking his thoughts aloud, “would be to the fire station up there.” He pointed his mittened hand towards the craggy sides of Jerusalem. “They may have started hot-foot for the settlement. Perhaps ‘Ladder’ Lane would have done that if ’twas Kate Arden he’d got. But seein’ as it’s John Barrett’s own daughter—” He paused and rubbed his mitten over his face. “Knowin’ what we do of the general disposition of old Lane, it’s more reasonable to think that he ain’t quite so anxious to deliver that particular package outside, seein’ that he can twist John Barrett’s heart out of him by keepin’ her hid in these woods.”
The young man had no words. His face pictured his fears.
“It’s only guesswork at best, Mr. Wade,” said Christopher. “It’s tough to think of climbin’ to the top of Jerusalem on this day, but it seems to me it’s up to us as men.” They looked at each other a moment, and the look was both agreement and pledge. They began the ascent, quartering the snowy slope. The dogged persistence of the veteran woodsman animated the old man; love and desperation spurred the younger. The climb from bench to bench among the trees was an heroic struggle. The passage across the bare poll of the mountain in the teeth of the bitter blast was torture indescribable. And they staggered to the fire station only to find its open doors drifted with snow, its two rooms empty and echoing.
“I was in hopes—in hopes!” sighed the old man, stroking the frozen sweat from his cheeks. “But I ain’t agoin’ to give up hopes here, sonny.” Even Wade’s despair felt the soothing encouragement in the old man’s tone.
“We’ve got to fetch Barnum Withee’s camp on ‘Lazy Tom’ before we sleep,” said the guide. “There’ll be something to eat there. There may be news. We’ve got to do it!” And they plodded on wearily over the ledges and down the west descent.
They made the last two miles by the light of their lantern, dragging their snow-shoes, one over the other, with the listlessness of exhaustion. The cook of Withee’s camp stared at them when they stumbled in at the door of his little domain, their snow-shoes clattering on the floor. He was a sociable cook, and he remarked, cheerily, “Well, gents, I’m glad to see that you seem to be lookin’ for a hotel instead of a horsepittle.”
Not understanding him, they bent to untie the latchets of their shoes without reply.