That our treasure might be packed in handy form for travelling we applied our time that evening to making little bags of canvas cut from the waggon-sheet, and these having been packed tight and sewn up, they were put into other bags made of buckskin, having thongs of the same material attached with which to tie them to our belts.
“There,” said Jack, as he restored the needles and thread to the case, and the case itself to his pocket, “now we are ready to get out as soon as we can. We’ll try the drifts to-morrow. Those near the north end look most promising. We’ll try them first.”
But, as it happened, we had no occasion to try the drifts after all. Before we set out next morning, Percy suggested that it might be worth while to look into the cleft in the valley-wall through which the stream ran out.
“For,” said he, “if this creek here is frozen so solid, it may be that we can walk on the ice down the cañon, and if we can, that will be much the easiest way to travel, because then we can follow along the stream—which is sure to bring us out somewhere—instead of climbing over the mountains.”
“We’ll have a look,” said Jack. “But I doubt if we shall find it frozen; the water runs at such a tremendous pace.”
Jack was right. The water was not frozen; it was just as wild as ever. But we could walk over the top of it nevertheless. For at the very entrance of the cañon, the stream vanished into a tunnel of snow. The great storm had drifted the gorge half full. Resting upon the boulders which cumbered its bed lay a heavy mass of tightly-packed snow, roofing the stream from one end of the cañon to the other.
We might walk out of the valley whenever we chose!
