“Who’s that?” asked one of the men who had been loitering at the Grub Stake bar.
Hurley explained briefly about the absent girls. Two men besides those already of their party volunteered to join Hurley and the parson. A rope—a hair lariat—was likewise found with which the searchers could bind themselves together. It would be the simplest thing imaginable to drift away from each other in such a blinding storm.
Dick Beckworth gave unmistakable signs of returning consciousness. He groaned, struggled, raised up on an elbow to stare about.
“Hold on!” the parson said to Joe. “See if the man can speak. He may know something.”
“Right you are, Willie,” Hurley agreed. He leaned over the dazed gambler. “Hi, Dick! Do you know me? Joe Hurley! See?”
“Where—where am I?” whispered Dick.
“You’re in the Grub Stake, all right, Dick,” broke in Tolley eagerly. “The old Grub Stake, I tell ye—that you never ought t’ve left.”
“Grub Stake? Tolley?” questioned Dick. Then he opened his eyes wide and recognized Hurley’s face so close to his own. “That you, Joe? I——”
“Which way did you come into town, Dick?” broke in the mining man.
“Eh? What?”