"Are you fixed all right here in case of being snowed in?" he asked.
"I am that—for four weeks, if need be; but does it look like that out?"
"Pretty much. Good-bye, Davy;" and he walked back and held out his hand to the old man, who looked at him wonderingly. Though their friendship was earnest, they were never demonstrative, and Genesee usually left with a careless klahowya!
"Why, lad—"
"I'm going to look for her, Davy. If I find her, you'll hear of it; if I don't, tell the cursed fools at the ranch that I—that I sent a guide who would give his life for her. Good-bye, old fellow—good-bye."
Down over the mountain he went, leading Mowitza, and breaking the path ahead of her—slow, slow work. At that rate of travel, it would be morning before he could reach the ranch; and he must find her first.
He found he could have made more speed with snow-shoes and without Mowitza—the snow was banking up so terribly. The valley was almost reached when a queer sound came to him through the thick veil of white that had turned gray with coming night.
Mowitza heard it, too, for she threw up her head and answered it with a long whinny, even before her master had decided what the noise was; but it came again, and then he had no doubt it was the call of a horse, and it was somewhere on the hill above him.
He fastened Mowitza to a tree, and started up over the way he had come, stopping now and then to call, but hearing no answer—not even from the horse, that suggested some phantom-like steed that had passed in the white storm.
Suddenly, close to him, he heard a sound much more human—a whistle; and in a moment he plunged in that direction, and almost stumbled over a form huddled against a fallen tree. He could not see her face. He did not need to. She was in his arms, and she was alive. That was enough. But she lay strangely still for a live woman, and he felt in his pocket for that whisky-flask; a little of the fiery liquor strangled her, but aroused her entirely.