March gave place to April, finally; but in the mountains April showers do not have the effect they are popularly supposed to have elsewhere, the showers being great downfalls of snow alternating with thaws which threatened to turn the entire cañon into a river and brought to their ears daily the thunder of the snowslides. By the first of May the tops of the tallest willows began to appear, but the boys knew that the roots would not be visible for six weeks yet, so long does winter linger among the Shoshones. On the mountainside above timber-line bowlders began to push aside their dense white covering.
But with the softening of the great body of snow, the inhabitants of the cañon became more closely confined than ever. It was well that the hot sun did away with the necessity for a fire during the day, because the boys were able to cut and shovel their way only to the nearest trees.
"Things are getting worse instead of better," said Leslie gloomily one day when May was two weeks old.
The boys sat in the doorway in the red glow of a warm sunset. At their feet, only a few yards away, the narrow cañon was transformed into a river choked with ice and snow and mud flowing sluggishly among the willows. For weeks the boys had looked in vain for the subsidence of the water. On the steep slope of the mountain opposite lay a mass of wet heavy snow waiting for its turn to come to plunge into the cañon.
Ross, his eyes on this slope, gave a rueful laugh. "Less, if only we had such a charge of dynamite now as we set off under Soapweed Ledge we might have a little fun across there."
"Fun!" echoed Leslie miserably. "Never connect that piece of foolishness with the word ’fun.’ If it hadn’t been for that shot we probably would have been in Meadow Creek Valley now hard at work."
Ross gazed gloomily up the river-like cañon. He wondered whether the trail from Miners’ Camp to Meadow Creek was clear yet, and whether the McKenzies had returned to the valley; for in three weeks Weimer’s fifth year of work on the claims would close. He chafed with impatience at the delay necessitated by that slowly moving stream. With the cañon clear, the boys had determined to start out and follow its windings until they came to–Somewhere.
Late one afternoon of that same week Ross sat studying beneath the window while Leslie was out trying to force a path to a fine spruce tree that promised good fire-wood. The sun had long since hidden his face behind the mountain against which the cabin rested, but his rays turned the snow on the peaks opposite to gold. The day had been warm. The door stood open, and the fire was almost out. Near the doorway, and only a few feet from a solid bank of ice, blossomed a profusion of forget-me-nots and yellow wild asters. The breeze which rocked their petals was the breeze of summer that, nevertheless, carried the tang of the ice and snow over which it passed.
Suddenly Ross, deep in his book, heard a sound, the crunching of the pine cones and boughs with which the ground was strewn. A moment later a shadow moved across his book. He sprang to his feet, the book falling to the floor, and confronted a man in the doorway.
The man was middle-aged, large, and stoop-shouldered. His face was burned and bearded and furrowed, but astonishment was stamped on every feature and furrow.