The two men stole up the rough road leading to the hut. Riles felt his heart thumping, and his lungs seemed half choked for air, but Gardiner lost none of his composure, and would have lit a cigarette had he not feared the light would betray them. The glow of the lantern came from the building, shining in a long, fading wedge from the sashless window, but seemed strangely obscure about the door. As they approached this mystery was revealed; a blanket was seen to hang over the doorway.
"That's a good sign," whispered Gardiner. "One, or both of them, are sleeping. That's why they feel the cold. If they had stayed awake they would have built a fire and perhaps walked about outside. This mountain air gets a man that isn't used to it. I'll bet you could go to sleep yourself this minute, Riles, if you weren't so scared."
"I ain't scared, damn you," said Riles, though the words trembled in his teeth. "If it comes to a show-down we'll see who's scared."
"That's good," said Gardiner. "That's the way to talk. If you just keep that up for a few minutes it'll all be over."
They paused for a moment to listen. The night was moonless and starry, except where a bank of clouds came drifting up from the south-west. A moist breeze, smelling of soft, mountain snow, gently stirred the trees about them. But from the shanty no sound could be discerned. They approached nearer, and still nearer.
"Now, you go to the door, and I'll take the window," Gardiner ordered. "Shove the blanket aside a little and size up the situation before you speak. We must make sure they're there, and there alone."
Gardiner waited until he saw Riles fumbling carefully with the blanket that hung in the doorway. Then he darted quickly to the window.
CHAPTER XVII
THE FIGHT IN THE FOOTHILLS
While Allan sat in the little cabin he gradually became oppressed with a sense of great loneliness. From time to time he looked at the face of his sleeping father, and suddenly the knowledge struck him like a knife that it was the face of an old man. He had never thought of him as an old man before, but as he lay on the rough floor, sleeping soundly after his long drive, there was something in the form that told of advancing years, and Allan could see plainly the deepening furrows in his strong, still handsome face. As he looked a vast tenderness mingled with his loneliness; he would have stooped and caressed him had he not feared to disturb his slumbers. Allan's love for his father was that of man to man rather than son to parent; it was the only deep passion of his young life, and it ran with a fulness that could not be checked. Of his mother he thought with kindliness, tinged with regret that all had not of late been quite as it should be in their domestic circle; toward his sister he felt a vague longing and uneasiness, and a new feeling which had taken root that afternoon that perhaps after all she was right in seeking to live her life as she would; but it was to his father that his great emotion turned. He looked upon the sleeping man now, with the wealth of a lifetime's labour at his side, and the bond of trust and confidence between them seemed so tight it brought the moisture to his eyes. He thought of the past years; of their labour on the farm together—hard labour, but always relieved by their comradeship and mutual ambitions. A hundred half-forgotten incidents came to mind, in all of which his father was companion and chum rather than parent and corrector. And after all, hadn't it been worth while? Had not they, in their way, really given expression to their lives as best they could in the black, earth-smelling furrows, in the scent of tallowy, straw-aromaed steam from their engine, or the wet night-perfume of ripening wheat? How those old smells beat up from the mysterious chambers of memory and intoxicated his nostrils with fondness and a great sense of having, in some few hallowed moments, dove-tailed his own career into the greater purpose of creation! Allan did not analyze these thoughts and memories, or try to fit them into words, but they brought to him a consciousness of having lived—of having known some experiences that were not altogether material and temporal.