"No." Tisdale's glance came slowly back. "He was beyond any help. A square
of canvas was set obliquely on the glacier side, and that and the blanket
which covered him proved the place was his camp; but the only traces of
food were a few cracker or bread crumbs in a trap made of twigs, and a
marmot skin and a bunch of ptarmigan feathers to show the primitive
contrivance had worked. There was no wood in the neighborhood, but the
ashes of a small fire showed he must have carried fuel from the belt of
spruce half-way down the gorge. If he had made such a trip and not gone on
to the cabin, it clearly proved his mental condition. Still in the end
there had been a glimmer of light, for he had torn a leaf from his
notebook and written first his wife's name and then a line, out of which I
was only able to pick the words 'give' and 'help' and 'States.' Evidently
he had tried to put the paper into his poke, which had dropped, untied,
from his hand with the pencil he had used. The sack was nearly full; it
had fallen upright in a fold of the blanket, so only a little of the gold,
which was very coarse and rough and bright, had spilled. I made all this
inventory almost at a glance, and saw directly he had left his pan and
shovel in the gravels of a stream that cascaded over the wall and through
the pocket to join the creek below the glacier. Then it came over me that
I must keep the truth from her until she was safely back at the cabin, and
I put the poke in my pocket and hurried to do what I could.
"The setter hampered me and was frantic when I turned away, alternately
following me a few yards, whining and begging, and rushing back to his
master. Finally he stopped on the farther side of the ice-bridge and set
up a prolonged cry. His mistress had come to meet me and she waited at the
crossing, supporting herself with her hands on a great boulder, shoulders
forward, breath hushed, watching me with her soul in her eyes. At last I
reached her. 'Madam,' I began, but the words caught in my throat. I turned
and looked up at the splendor on the mountain. The air drew sharp across
the ice, but a sudden heat swept me; I was wet with perspiration from head
to foot. 'Madam,' and I forced myself to meet her eyes, 'it is just as I
expected; the dog found--nothing.'
"She straightened herself slowly, still watching me, then suddenly threw
her arms against the rock and dropped her face. 'Come,' I said, 'we must
start back. Come, I want to hurry through to my camp for a horse.'
"This promise was all she needed to call up her supreme self-control, and
she lifted her face with a smile that cut me worse than any tears. 'I'm
not ungrateful,' she said, 'but--I felt so sure, from the first, you would
find him.'
"'And you felt right,' I hurried to answer. 'Trust me to bring him
through.'
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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