And raising both hands to form a voice trumpet, he uttered a loud: “Hallo I hallo!”
But no answer came. Again he shouted, again and yet again, turning round in all directions. Everything remained silent and still.
The Major now glanced at his compass, and took his bearings.
“Come,” was all he said, as he led the way through the loose crisp snow that crunched and cheeped beneath their feet.
Half an hour later the storm by some strange vagary abated. The wind was blowing stronger, but it seemed to be driving the snow-laden clouds up into the higher mountain elevations. All of a sudden a penetrating shaft of sunshine flashed through the dancing snow-flakes, then the flakes themselves ceased to fall, and the sun was shining on the virgin mantle of white that enveloped range and peaks as far as the eye could see.
Roderick glanced down the mountain side. Almost beneath his feet was Conchshell Ranch—he could see the home on the little knoll amid the clustering pine trees. For the moment he was thinking of Gail. But the hand of Buell Hampton had clutched his shoulder.
“Look!”
And Roderick looked—away in the direction of Cow Creek Canyon, a mighty gash in the flank of the mountains nearly a thousand feet deep and more than half a mile across. Standing out, clear and distinct in the bright sunshine, were the tall twin towers on either side of the gorge, supporting the great steel cable which bridged the chasm and carried the long string of iron buckets bringing ore from the Ferris-Haggerty mine, fourteen miles distant, down into the smelter at Encampment. Roderick at his first glance saw that the aerial cars, despite the recent snow-storm, were still crawling across the deep canyon, for all the world like huge spiders on a strand of gossamer.
But as his eyes swept the landscape he beheld outlined on the white expanse of snow the figures of three men. One, standing fully a hundred yards away from the other two and lower down the hill, was the gorilla-like form of Bud Bledsoe. The others were Grady and Grant Jones on his skis.
And as Roderick looked, before he could even utter a cry, these two figures clutched at each other. For a moment they swayed to and fro, then Grant seemed to fling his man away from him.