For the Allinson Honor

He shivered as he did so. The cold bit through him, his mittened hands would hardly bend, but he strapped up his bundle and helped Graham to put on his frozen moccasin. They were careful to hang up their footwear in a warm place at night, but the fire had sunk while they slept. Then they ate a hurried meal and struck out into the white wilderness as the light grew stronger. They made, by estimation, eighteen miles by nightfall, finding a creek and one or two small lakes over which traveling was easy, but most of the way led across hillocks of rounded rock and through tangles of tottering pines, where snow-shoes could not be used. Some of the trees had been partly burned, and others were slanted and distorted by the savage winds.

Toward the end of the march Graham dragged behind, and when they made camp he spent some time rubbing his foot.

"It feels dead," he told them. "I'm afraid I got it nipped a bit, but I don't think it's bad."

"See that you get your moccasin properly dry to-night," Carnally warned him.

The next morning he felt lame and the country was rougher, but they made thirty miles in two days, and set out again on the third dawn with thick snow driving into their faces. Fortunately, the ground was smoother, and they plodded on stubbornly with a short halt at noon, Carnally breaking the trail for the two behind. Graham had trouble in keeping up with his companions; but they had no thought to spare for him during the laborious march. It needed all their resolution to press forward against the searching wind. At nightfall they camped in a sheltered ravine and when supper was over Graham got Carnally to help him off with his moccasin. While they pulled at it he made an abrupt movement, and Carnally, stopping, glanced at a dark stain on the leather.

"That looks like blood!"

"I think it is," said Graham. "I slept with the thing on last night. To tell the truth, I was afraid to take it off."

"It will have to come off now."

Carnally's face turned grave when Graham removed his stocking. Part of his foot felt cold and lifeless; the rest was inflamed, and there was a red patch, rubbed raw by the frozen moccasin.

"Looks bad," Carnally said. "Have you got an old handkerchief or anything to wrap round it?"

"I couldn't walk with a bandage under my stocking."

"You're not going to walk; you ought to know what trouble that might make." Carnally turned to Andrew. "He can't go on. It's a dangerous thing to gall a frostnipped foot. I don't see how it got so bad in four days' time."

Graham broke into a wry smile.

"It began to hurt soon after I left the factory, and getting it wet didn't improve things; but I thought I could hold out until we made the lode."

There was silence for a few moments. Graham's foot was throbbing painfully, and having gone on until compelled to stop, he knew his helplessness. His comrades realized that they were burdened with a crippled man, far from shelter and assistance in an icy waste. Dejection seized them; and Andrew, glancing at the darkness round about, felt a sudden horror of the desolation. This, however, was a dangerous feeling to yield to, and he strove to overcome it.

"We're two days' march from the lode," he said. "It's unthinkable that we should turn back without trying to locate it. Graham may be better after a rest. It might be possible, Carnally, that by forcing the pace we could knock a day off the double journey."

"I'll give you six days," Graham said. "I can stay here; but if you don't start the first thing to-morrow, I'll crawl on myself."

"No," Andrew declared; "whether we strike the lode or not, we'll be back before the fourth morning. The next thing is to consider what to do then. Provisions aren't plentiful."

They discussed the matter at length, for even the finding of the lode was, by comparison unimportant. It would be some time before Graham could walk far, and, with each day's journey seriously curtailed there was grave danger of their food running out. At first, Carnally was in favor of trying to reach the factory, where they would find shelter, but yielded to the objection that it was farther off than the nearer of the caches which Mappin had been engaged to make. He agreed that they would save several days by cutting the back trail between the mine and the spot where they had diverged to reach the factory, and they would then pick up a hand sled they had used for a time and abandoned when the country grew very rough and their load lighter. If Graham's foot was still troublesome, they could haul him on the sled and still make a good day's march. The plan was agreed on, and after carefully arranging their packs for the expedition and getting the clearest instructions that Graham could give them, they went to sleep.

The next morning long before daylight Andrew and Carnally were getting together a supply of branches and logs so that Graham might keep a fire going night and day until their return: for the double purpose of warmth and of protection against the timber wolves. When they had made Graham comfortable, they set off. They had heard no wolves of late, which was reassuring, but they had grave misgivings about leaving the crippled man, and meant to save every possible minute on the march. It was comparatively open country, they could use their snow-shoes, and they pressed on until dusk without stopping, though the last league taxed Andrew's strength. He was badly tired when at noon the next day they reached a hillside commanding a rocky basin filled with stunted pines. A shallow ravine ran at their feet.

Carnally stopped suddenly.

"I believe we've struck it!" he cried. "That must be the creek Graham talks about!"

Forgetting their weariness, they ran down the hill and stopped beside a frozen stream hemmed in by ice-glazed rocks.

"I guess we're somewhere about the spot, and we'll fire a dump shot on yonder ridge where there's not much snow," Carnally said. "That's all we can do."

"Can't we stake three claims?" Andrew suggested. "The recorder might allow Graham one if things were explained."

"It can't be done. You get the frontage you apply for on the reef, but its extent is limited and full particulars must be supplied, while a man can hold only one claim on the same vein. Then a record isn't secret. If you don't stake off the best of the lode, you give the thing away, and send off every prospector who hears of it to locate what you have missed."

The situation was clear to Andrew, and it was daunting. After all the fatigue and dangers of the journey, he must go back without accomplishing anything useful; but there was no help for it.

"I suppose if we had a week we might form some idea of what is worth staking off, even with the snow on the ground," he said. "However, as it is, we have got about two hours. We had better make the most of them."

They lighted a fire and sat beside it, thawing two sticks of dynamite, a proceeding attended by some risk, which Carnally seriously increased when he crimped the powerful detonating caps on the fuses with numbed and clumsy fingers. Both men were moody and dejected, but they did not express their feelings, for they were capable of meeting reverses with silent fortitude. Carnally stood to lose more money than he had ever had a prospect of earning until his companion took him north; Andrew knew at what a disadvantage his failure would place him in the struggle with Leonard. He was sincere in his purpose to see justice done, but he had no romantic ideas about it. His task was based on common honesty: Allinson's had guaranteed the undertaking and Allinson's must make good. Andrew was, however, troubled by two conflicting claims. He had a duty to the shareholders which could best be discharged by remaining near the lode until he proved its value; and a duty to Graham, whom he had promised to bring home safe and sound. Graham, most unfortunately, was crippled, and the scarcity of provisions made it doubtful whether he could be taken back to the Landing, unless they started without delay. The shareholders must wait.

Carnally kneaded the softening dynamite round the detonators.

"Try to scrape down to the rock on the spot I marked," he said. "I'll come when you're ready and we'll fire the shot."

Andrew had some trouble in carrying out his instructions, but when he had done so Carnally laid the cartridges on the stone and covered them with snow carefully pressed down. Then they dragged up a small fallen spruce and, laying it on the spot, lighted the fuses and hastily retired. In a minute there was a flash, a sharp report; and a shower of flying fragments plunged into the snow, while a cloud of vapor curled up. Andrew sprang from his shelter, but Carnally seized his arm.

"Hold on!" he cried. "You don't want the fumes to knock you over. I guess we'll get dinner while we wait. You can't expect any startling results from one shot."

Eager as he was, Andrew ate his share of the scanty meal; he could practise self-control and he had marched a long way on short rations in bitter frost.

When they had examined the cavity made by the explosion, Carnally covered it with snow, and picked up the broken bits of rock. They had gathered a small heap, and Carnally, carefully selecting a few, looked at Andrew with a smile.

"I suppose you feel that you'd like to take the whole lot?"

"I thought we might carry half of them," Andrew admitted.

"Unless you're willing to dump your blankets, these will be enough. It's a long way to the Landing and we have to make the first food cache quick."

"You're right," said Andrew. "Besides, we must reach Graham's camp by to-morrow night."

"Rough on you!" Carnally sympathized; "I haven't as big a stake."

Nothing more was said while they rolled up their packs and set off grimly on the return trail.

It had been dark for several hours the next night when Andrew wearily toiled up a long rise dotted with ragged spruces. He was hungry and very cold, though he panted with the exertion he was forced to make. There was no feeling in his feet, which were bound to big snow-shoes; his hands were powerless in his thick mittens, and he carried a light ax under his arm. Fortunately, the trail they had broken when coming out led straight up the rise, and Carnally pressed on in front, a gray shape outlined against the glitter of the snow. A half-moon hung above them in a cloudless sky, the frost was intense, and the white desolation lay wrapped in an impressive silence. Not a breath of wind stirred the tops of the spruces.

Andrew's knees were giving way, and it seemed to him that the ascent they were laboriously mounting ran on for ever. He felt as if they had spent hours on it, though the frozen river at its foot was not far behind them. It was discouraging to fix his eyes on the black shape of a spruce ahead and see how slowly it grew nearer, but he felt unequal to contemplating the long trail to the summit, and he divided the distance into stages between tree and tree.

At last they crossed the ridge and it was a relief to go downhill, though the spruces grew in thicker belts and there was half a mile of timber that they were forced to traverse in their moccasins. Fallen logs obstructed their passage, they plunged into tangles of blown-down branches, the snow was loose among the slender trunks and here and there they sank deep in it. Andrew was, however, consumed by an anxiety which would brook no delay, and when he had with difficulty replaced his snow-shoes he looked up at his companion.

"We can't be far from camp?" he queried.

"About three miles. We ought to see it when we're through the timber on the lower bench. Graham had wood enough to keep a good fire going."

They pressed on, slipping down the steeper slopes, stumbling now and then, for both had regretted the necessity for leaving Graham alone, and at sunset they had seen the tracks of wolves. At last they plunged into a thick belt of spruce, where the trees were fairly large and there was not much fallen wood. Here and there a broad patch of moonlight glittered on the snow, confusing after the deep gloom, but the men could get through on their snow-shoes and avoid the trunks. They made good speed and when they broke out into the open Andrew stopped. Where a bright blaze should have marked Graham's fire there were only a few dying embers. The old man was nowhere to be seen.

CHAPTER XVI

THE CACHE

The two prospectors forgot their weariness as they rushed to the dying fire. Carnally looked at the embers.