“I got sort of used to slides,” Tom said, as they all fastened on their packs, and waved farewell to the caretaker. He told the Ranger and the doctor about their ride on the snowslide.
“Say, you’ve been havin’ an excitin’ time up there,” the Ranger laughed. “Wonder what’s happened since you left?”
“If Mills has ptomaine poisoning, nothing has happened,” the doctor said. “He’s simply been wishing it would!”
They grew silent as the grind began up the cañon trail through the forest. Tom’s tracks of yesterday, melted less than the unpacked snow, showed plainly, and often he had been way off the trail, taking short cuts ten feet up where he was clear of underbrush.
“Didn’t intend to,” he said. “But the snow was so deep I couldn’t always see the trail, and just steamed straight ahead.”
At noon they paused an hour for lunch and rest, and then picked up their loads again. The low sun was sinking behind Heaven’s Peak when they reached the top of the pass, and took off their snow-shoes, for the Chinook had stripped all the snow from the Divide, where the wind had previously blown it thin. On the head wall, they found only a few inches, and they were able to slide from one switchback to the next lower, thus cutting off the turns and descending with great rapidity.
But even so it was dark before they reached the cabin, and once more Tom was traveling on sheer nerve. So was the doctor, for that matter, though the Ranger seemed as fresh as when they started. They had been on the trail for twelve hours, with only one hour rest.
But Tom was the first up the steps and in the door.
Joe sprang up from a chair to greet him, and by the lamplight he could see Mills, on the couch, and heard him say, in a weak voice, “Hello, Tom.”
“Thank God!” Tom cried, and slumped down weary and exhausted on his pack.