Page:Edison Marshall--The voice of the pack.djvu/269

Rh to be any picnic, Dan. A man can travel only so far without food to keep up his strength, particularly over such ridges as you have to cross. It will be easy to give up and die. It's the test, man; it's the test."

"And what about you?" his daughter asked.

"Oh, I 'll be all right. Besides—it's the only thing that can be done. I can't walk, and you can't carry me on your backs. What else remains? I 'll stay here—and I 'll scrape together enough wood to keep a fire. Then you can bring help."

He kept his eyes averted when he talked. He was afraid for Dan to see them, knowing that he could read the lie in them.

"How do you expect to find wood—in this snow?" Dan asked him. "It will take four days to get out; do you think you could lie here and battle with a fire for four days, and then four days more that it will take to come back? You'd have two choices: to burn green wood that I'd cut for you before I left, or the rain-soaked dead wood under the snow. You could n't keep either one of them burning, and you'd die in a night. Besides—this is no time for an unarmed man to be alone in the hills."

Lennox's voice grew pleading. "Be sensible, Dan!" he cried. "That Cranston's got