Weimer shook his head. "No, I stay home and attend to pizness."
"Haven’t you ever crossed that mountain?" Ross indicated Soapweed Ledge.
"Yes."
"What’s beyond?"
"More mountains," answered Weimer vaguely, "und peyond dem more und more."
It was a week before the hunters returned, a long lonely week for Ross. Each morning he told himself hopefully that before night Leslie might return, but, to his increasing dismay, no Leslie came.
"Can it be that an accident has happened to him, somewhere, alone, or has he changed his mind about coming and gone back home?"
Ross asked himself this question as he stood at the mouth of the tunnel one morning staring in the direction of Soapweed Ledge. A heavy snowstorm had set in that morning, and in the afternoon the falling snow shrouded the Ledge in a white veil out of which the three men now emerged, moving slowly across the little valley. Their snow-shoes were on their feet, and in place of the light packs with which they had started their shoulders were bent under loads of venison.
The McKenzies had returned.
That evening Waymart appeared at Weimer’s door with a goodly portion of meat, at which Ross looked dubiously.