Page:GB Lancaster--law-bringer.djvu/466

464 brittle steel. He left it at last, a two-winged lobstick, such as the Indians use, and turned, seeking a way down the hill-flank. From below that landmark would give his position. It was not likely that Andree would be killed by the fall into soft snow. But it was possible that she might be smothered, and it was very certain that she would be starved if he did not find her in time.

It was on the second evening that he forced his way through a narrow-snow-choked gut into that ravine where Andree had fallen. The storm raged still, and it was more than likely that he would not get out by the way he had come; and when, along the ravine-bottom, he saw something flutter, like a leaf in the wind, he stood still, grasping his whip and taking long breaths through his nostrils. If Andree had come to him then he would have beaten her; but it was an hour before his shouts and chasing brought her to him, reeling like a drunken man, and with wolfish eyes, and high cheekbones showing. Silently he put food into her hands, watching her tear it and swallow it savagely. Once she looked up, saw his face, and looked away again. Then she jerked off her snow-shoe.

"Broke," she said, and handed it to him.

He spliced it with a tough twig of hemlock, called up the dogs, and turned back the way he had come. He took less notice of her than if she had been a dog, and she followed him, trembling, yet defiant; shaken with her grief and her misery. At the gut he stopped. There was no way out there any more. For a few minutes he stood, staring round on the steep rock-walls misty in the drifting snow. Then he said:

"Are you hurt anywhere, Andree?"

"Non," she said with quivering lips.

"Can you keep on walking?"

"Oui."

A little longer he stood, looking round him. Then, with a half-sigh, as though he knew the chance of that choice, he left the gap and went down the ravine.

Dick knew little of mountain-work; and in these fierce storms, and this deep snow which hid the lie of the rivers, the little he knew was worthless. By his compass he worked east when ravines or broken ledges of rock or im-