The stranger paused a moment rather to regain his breath than to wait for their more orderly and undivided attention. Then he uttered the single word: "Nothing!" "Nothing!" They all echoed the word simultaneously, but with different inflection and significance--one fiercely, another gloomily, another stupidly, another mechanically. The woman with the blanket baby explained to it, "he says 'nothing,'" and laughed. "No--nothing," repeated the speaker. "Yesterday's snow blocked up the old trail again. The beacon on the summit's burnt out. I left a notice at the Divide. Do that again, Dumphy, and I'll knock the top of your ugly head off." Dumphy, the red-haired man, had rudely shoved and stricken the woman with the baby--she was his wife, and this conjugal act may have been partly habit--as she was crawling nearer the speaker. She did not seem to notice the blow or its giver--the apathy with which these people received blows or slights was more terrible than wrangling--but said assuringly, when she had reached the side of the young man-- "To-morrow, then?" The face of the young man softened as he made the same reply he had made for the last eight days to the same question-- "To-morrow, surely!" She crawled away, still holding the effigy of her dead baby very carefully, and retreated down the opening. "'Pears to me you don't do much anyway, out scouting! 'Pears to me you ain't worth shucks!" said the harsh-voiced woman, glancing at the speaker. "Why don't some on ye take his place? Why do you trust your lives and the lives of women to that thar Ashley?" she continued, with her voice raised to a strident bark. The hysterical young man, Henry March, who sat next to her, turned a wild scared face upon her, and then, as if fearful of being dragged into the conversation, disappeared hastily after Mrs. Dumphy. Ashley shrugged his shoulders, and, replying to the group, rather than any individual speaker, said curtly-- "There's but one chance--equal for all--open to all. You know what it is. To stay here is death; to go cannot be worse than that." He rose and walked slowly away up the cañon a few rods to where another mound was visible, and disappeared from their view. When he had gone, a querulous chatter went around the squatting circle. "Gone to see the old Doctor and the gal. We're no account." "Thar's two too many in this yer party." "Yes--the crazy Doctor and Ashley." "They're both interlopers, any way." "Jonahs." "Said no good could come of it, ever since we picked him up." "But the Cap'n invited the ol' Doctor, and took all his stock at Sweetwater, and Ashley put in his provisions with the rest." The speaker was McCormick. Somewhere in the feeble depths of his consciousness there was still a lingering sense of justice. He was hungry, but not unreasonable. Besides, he remembered with a tender regret the excellent quality of provision that Ashley had furnished.