Blera’s voice rang thin as a wail in the frosty stillness.
She sprang to Jose, seized on the cloth of his vest and pushed the pocket inside out from the bottom so that the contents fell into the palm of her left gantlet.
Mingled with the broken glass of the bottle was a muddled mass of splintered match-stumps and sodden heads.
“Must have done it in the fall!” quavered Jose, still staring stupidly. “I felt your snow-shoe take me hard in the ribs when we went down.”
But Blera did not heed.
She was kneeling again by the pile of spruce branches, scratching match-head after match-head.
None of them would light despite her frantic and repeated trials. In despair she threw the sodden mass into the unlit pile of twigs and turned again to Cantine.
“Your Colt, Jose!” she appealed, rising stiffly. “Your Colt! You can start it with a shot!”
“My Colt?” Cantine looked bewildered. The frost seemed to be deadening his senses already. “My Colt, Blera? Oh, yes. Bassett took it, ’way back at Happy Camp!”
“Good God!” screamed Blera, remembering.