the edges, hauling downward with his weight. The cupboard gave slightly and resisted. Jim Chaffee let his arm fall; and an expression of shocked surprise flickered across his slim face. Two ten penny nails—nothing more—anchored that box. And he couldn't pull it down. This was bold handwriting on the cabin wall. He became aware than that he was weaker than he figured and he made no further attempt at getting firewood. Instead, he hopped back to the stove and plunged into an involved train of thoughts.
"Now this ain't really so bad. I'm alive, ain't I? I'm not hangin' by mere perspiration to the edge of the canyon. And I'm not dodgin' any bullets. Nobody can poison my soup, because there ain't any soup to poison. It bein' cold, I don't need to worry about bein' bit by a hydrophobia dog. Shucks, there's lots of things that can't happen to me. The point is, I wonder what Mack's up to?"
He had promised to drop a line from Bannock City. Mack would worry about not getting a letter. Mack would begin to look ahead and count over possibilities. Knowing his partner very well, Jim understood that after a certain length of time had elapsed without word Mack Moran would not sit idle. The battling puncher would fet aboard a horse and investigate. Right there was a definite hope.
"Question becomes, how long will he wait?" pondered Jim Chaffee. "If everything had gone according to schedule I'd have written three days ago, and he'd have said letter by now. He'll be wonderin' right now. But he'll wait another twenty-four hours, anyhow. Then he'll start up this way. If I can hold out till Tuesday—"
Tuesday seemed remote. In fact the longer he studied his position the more impossibly distant Tuesday became. He took himself to account. "Listen, Chaffee, what's the idea of expectin' somebody else to hoist you out of this pickle? It ain't your style. You're twenty-one, free, white, and hungry. You got into this jackpot. Now it's up to you and nobody else. Do somethin'."
A gunny sack lay over in one corner of the room. He boosted himself across the floor and got it. Taking his knife he cut a hole in the sewed end and shook out the dirt. Then he measured himself against it and slit an aperture on either side. Throwing the sack over his head he found he had a smock which, though quite dusty and smelling very evil, gave him so much extra protection. Thus far he had no idea at all of what he meant to do. The next logical thing seemed to be an inspection of his gun, and following that he moved toward the door.
"It's a long way back to Gorman's lodge," he muttered. "Too far to crawl. But do somethin' anyhow. You can't expect a break unless you go out there and make one. Stick here much longer and you'll be pickin' bananas off the wall. It's serious when a man begins talkin' to himself unless he's a sheep herder. Just amble out and have a look."
He opened the door and found the tunnel half filled in. So he took up the bitter work of clearing another alley to the surface. Once again the knife edge of the slashing wind bit into his bones, and once again he heard the shrill wailing of the peaks above him. According to his judgment it was around noon, but he had no way of exactly determining. There was no hint of sun in the cheerless snow mist, no hint of time's passage at all except the waxing and waning of the thin, bleak light. He was isolated, cut off from human kind in this high, storm battered world.
The rounding alley of the pass beckoned either way. West was back to timber line, back to Gorman's. East was into the adjacent valley. All landmarks were buried, and the weaving, driving snow choked out everything but the immediate foreground. Rising to one knee he studied this desolation neither hopefully nor otherwise. He could fight, and he was so prepared to fight—the last great fight for simple existence; yet at the same time he was a gambler at heart and, being a gambler, studied his chances with a critical eye. Not for a moment did he allow himself the folly of optimism. He knew very well that the elements had him hamstrung, that they were pulling him down to a soundless and not unpleasant death. So much he admitted.
"Why lay down and quit in that cabin? I might make it to Gorman's. I might. Wind's behind me and it's down grade. Well, if there's any other chances I'd better think of 'em right now before I start."
He was conscious all of a sudden that the intense cold didn't bite him as it should. He wasn't feeling it like he ought to feel it. "A good man can stand lots of this," said he. "But it gets a thin old wolf like me sudden, I better be movin'. I sure do wish I could eat coffee and flapjacks in that little log house of mine once more."
He crawled away from the tunnel, testing his strength against the snow. Ten yards left him doubtful. Twenty more yards and he stopped, breathing hard and feeling the quiver of his muscles. It may have been a momentary flash of despair that turned him about for a last look at the summit cabin; it may have been a recognition of defeat; or it may have been some impalpable note of warning singing along the whipping wind. But he turned at any rate; and deep in the mist, beyond the cabin, he saw a tall silhouette moving across the gray background of the storm. It woke all the hope he had left; it dredged up the last of his strength. He stood on his knees, trying to penetrate the pall; he shouted, knowing that the wind whipped his words on down the slope—the wrong way. Then the silhouette disappeared.
"Eyes goin' bad. Why don't I get sore about it? Why don't I kick up a fuss? Now what—"
The silhouette reappeared, quartered along the lifting clouds of snow, and halted. Didn't have the shape of a man. Maybe a horse. But what would a horse be doing up here? The tricks of the snow tantalized him, thinning and thickening, giving him an instant's glimpse of the moving object and then shutting it from sight. He dropped to all fours and crawled against the wind. He came abreast the cabin, toiled on, and stopped out of exhaustion. The silhouette grew plainer, broke the mists. A mule-tail buck deer stood fifty yards away, ribs sprung out against sunken flanks; the animal braced its feet wide in the snow and lowered its head.
Chaffee reached for his gun. "Mister Buck, just take your time. Don't be in any hurry. And drift this way, you son-of-a- gun!"
The deer advanced a few more yards and again took a stand. The wind was driving him onward across the pass. How he had gotten this far up Chaffee didn't understand, but he was not disposed to reflect on the vagaries of the animal kingdom at this precise moment. Flat on his stomach, he crawled ahead, wishing the day was still darker. He stopped, afraid to move into the buck's line of vision, and he made a tripod with his elbows and propped the gun between palms.
"That's all right Take your time. You got this far, now come a little farther. No, that snow ain't fit to eat. And you can't smell me a-tall. Not a-tall, Mister Buck. Wind's the wrong way. That's right—one foot in front of the other. Same way my mamma taught me to walk. Nossir, you can't see me, either. I'm all covered with snow. It's only a log you see. Yeah."
The buck plowed ahead, directly in fine with Chaffee. The man pulled back the gun's hammer and took a test sight. Right in the chest and a little to one side. But it was still too far. The buck had trouble in making traction, and three times during that long spell of waiting the beast stopped. Chaffee throttled the impulse to shoot. Another yard would make it surer. And when the deer advanced the necessary yard Chaffee argued with himself again as if he were lecturing an impatient child. Still another yard to be more sure. "Yuh look hungry. Well, they's all sorts of nice grass down beyond me. Don't take my word for it. Use your own judgment. Ain't that what you come all this way to find? Now next time you stop, turn halfway round. I'll be obliged. I'd rather aim behind a forequarter. Won't hurt you near so much."
All this was under his breath. Feeling fast fled from his arms. The muzzle of the gun had a tendency to droop. The buck halted twenty yards or more away. Chaffee sighed and squeezed the trigger. The report of that shot roared in his ears and was flung back by the wind; the buck reared, whirled about, and raced into the teeth of the driving mist. A moment later he was beyond the pall, and all of Jim Chaffee's hopes went with him. The revolver dropped to the snow, nor did the man make any effort to secure it. Very, very slowly he hauled himself toward the cabin. He was sleepy and he began to argue with himself, "about the blamed well you got to exert a little more steam. Cabin ain't but a mite off. Hoopa—one more boost." His head dropped and he never knew when he went to sleep. The descent to oblivion was very easy. Gay Thatcher and Ranzo Taber, coming along less than five minutes later with Taber's huskies, almost ran over him.
His feet hurt—that woke him out of the stupor. They stung like fury. So did his hands; so did his