The Shark began to slacken pace. His halts for observation were more frequent and longer. Once or twice he even turned back briefly, working over ground they had crossed a moment before. Varley saw that a frown was on his face.
“Are we—are we ’most there?” he inquired solicitously.
“Huh! Ought to be.”
Varley cast a glance about him. “I don’t see anything of that—that marker, you called it, didn’t you?”
Very deliberately the Shark removed his spectacles, and pulled out a handkerchief. He cleared the lenses of moisture, set them before his eyes, peered—or tried to peer—at the hills. But the thickening rain hid them.
“Huh! Closing in, ain’t it?” he growled.
“It surely is!” Varley agreed.
“Then I’ll have to depend more on dead reckoning. Let’s see! Um—um! Allowing for the—— Look here!” The Shark whipped about to glare at his companion. “Look here! Don’t suppose that map’s inaccurate, do you?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, I’m going to know—and know mighty quick,” said the Shark grimly. “That marker ought to be within a hundred yards—no, within fifty—of where we are this minute. Maybe there’s snow over it. Still, it ought to show—way the stuff’s melting and going off, you know.”