“Good!” said Gordon Duncan as a satisfied smile overspread his wrinkled face. “They have found Timmie’s trail.” He always spoke of the recluse as Timmie, the only name he had known him by. “Now they will not pause nor lag until they have come up with him.”
All day they followed the team. Spring surely was coming. They saw it in little rushing streams. They smelled it in the moisture that rose from the rocky ledges. They heard it in the honking of the first flock of wild geese.
But the signs of spring only saddened Faye Duncan. “Spring means life,” she thought, “renewed life. And poor Johnny Longbow who came with us so far, who in such an unselfish way gave up his own plans to aid Grandfather in the realization of his life’s dearest dream, lies beneath the eternal snows.”
But did he? She could not be sure. She dared hope, for was not his arrow found piercing the carcass of that monstrous bear? If his arrow had escaped had not he? Who could have shot that arrow?
To this question she found no answer. Of one thing she was certain—if Johnny Longbow were free to come to them he would be at her side. Her heart swelled with undefinable emotion at the thought.
Still they traveled on. Over a ledge, down a ravine, across a plateau, the trail led.
At times they caught glimpses of the river, a bright blue ribbon, far below.
In places the river was white. This meant that ice had risen to the surface.
“Soon go out, that one ice,” said the Indian who spoke English. “Then, whooee! Big splash, big rush, plenty noise!”
Faye found herself hoping that they might be within sight of the river when the breakup came. That was one of Nature’s dramas she had long desired to see.