"That is exactly what I’ve been wanting to do," assented Steele swiftly and heartily. "But I won’t do it at all to-night. It’ll take you a few days to get over your light-headedness, and until you do the trail around Crosby won’t be healthy ridin’ for you. Anyway, there’s a lot to be done, for Uncle Jake Weimer hasn’t laid in any winter supplies yet."
Ross tipped his chair back against the unhewn logs, and thrust his hands into his pockets. Ever since the talkative prospector had passed through the stage camp he had wondered what manner of man Weimer was. But not until he was jolting along in the stage that day did one sentence especially recur to him in all its possible significance.
The prospector had said, "’Curious how that snow-blindness should have touched Dutch Weimer.’"
Therefore, Ross’s first question was of the man he had crossed the continent to help.
The answer reached far into the night; and when at last Ross, wrapped in his blankets, lay down in a bunk built against the wall, it was a long time before sleep came, tired as he was.
The following evening, after a full day’s work, he sat down beside the little home-made table to write to Dr. Grant and Aunt Anne while Steele washed up the supper dishes.
"I should be worse than helpless, were it not for Steele," he wrote; "and even with him to help me I may as well own up I am in blue funk. Not a man is there to hire; so the programme for the next few months seems to be this: Yours truly has got to put on some muscle, and buckle down to pick and shovel. Where do you think Piersol’s ’Histology’ is coming in, uncle, or that man Remsen?
"But that’s not the worst. It seems that Weimer isn’t as stout in his head as he was before he was stricken with snow-blindness, and, although he is as stout as ever in his muscles, he doesn’t take kindly to work any more. Hasn’t even taken the winter’s supplies of food and dynamite over to Meadow Creek. He’s just smoking his pipe in peace because of the man father is sending to help him out! But I can tell you that the peace is all on his side.
"The mountains here are the original packages, all right. They’re miles high, and look as if they’d topple over on a fellow with but half an excuse. And then the air–or the lack of it, rather! I’ve not been able to walk any distance without a cane, so uncertain does this rare air make me in my motions. But Steele says I’ll get over that in a day or two. So, day after to-morrow he is going with me to Meadow Creek with the Gale’s Ridge Company’s horses–we ’pack’ over the supplies for the winter, and the emergency chest just as it is; but, Aunt Anne, only a small portion of the contents of my big trunk can go. Over on the Creek Steele can explain to me about the amount of work to be done, for fear Weimer doesn’t tell it straight––"
Suddenly Ross stopped. He leaned back and bit his pencil, his eyes narrowing frowningly as he glanced over the letter. Then with a gesture of disdain he caught up the sheets, and tore them into fragments.