"Oh, no!" said Mac; "this is nothing. It will all go again by to-morrow; there will be nothing to stop us from another week or two. Besides, yesterday I had a notion that I saw something. I didn't tell you, but I found another bit of quartz—aye, richer than the piece I showed you at the Forks, Tom, and we've got to find out where it comes from."
I groaned, but, in spite of argument, there was no moving him; and though I was angry enough to have gone off by myself, yet knowing neither the trail nor the country well, I had no desire to get lost in the mountains, which would most assuredly have meant death to me. However, I still remonstrated, and at last got him to fix ten days as the very longest time he would remain: I was obliged to be content with that.
But Mac was sorry before the hour appointed for our departure that he had not taken my advice, "tenderfoot" and Englishman though I was. On the evening of the eighth day the temperature, which had up to that time been fairly warm in spite of our altitude and the advanced season, fell suddenly, and it became bitterly cold. Our ponies, who had managed to pick up a fair living on the plateau where our camp stood, and along the creek bottoms, came right up to our tent, and one of them put his head inside. "Dick," as we called him, was a much gentler animal than most British Columbian cayuses, and had made a friend of me, coming once a day at least for me to give him a piece of bread, of which he had grown fond, though at first he was as strange with it as a young foal with oats. I put up my hand and touched his nose, which was soft and silky, while the rest of his coat was long and rough. He whinnied gently, and I found a crust for him, and then gently repulsing him, I fastened the fly of the tent. Mac was fast asleep under his dark blankets, whence there came sudden snorts like those a bear makes in his covert, or low rumblings like thunder from a thick cloud.
But it was he who woke me in the morning, and he did it without ceremony.
"Get up, old man!" he said hurriedly, while he was jamming himself, as it were, into his garments. "The snow's come at last—and, by thunder, it's come to stay! There's no time to be lost!" And he vanished into the white space outside.
When I followed I found him already at work packing the ponies, and without any words I set to, struck the tent, rolled it up, and got together everything I thought should go. When I touched the tools Mac turned round.
"Leave 'em, pard—leave 'em. There's plenty of weight without that. Aye, plenty—and too much!"
The last I only just caught, for it was said to himself. In half an hour we were off, leaving behind us nearly three weeks' provisions, all the tools but two light shovels, and what remained after our working the quartz.
"It's worth a thousand dollars," said Mac, regretfully, "but without a proper crusher it's only tailings."
We moved off camp, Mac first, leading the nameless pony, which was the stronger of the two, and I following with Dick.