Nevertheless their evening was
spoiled--the evening they had looked forward to with so much pleasure
and their minds were filled with anxious thoughts when finally they
rolled into their blankets for the night.
Christmas morning came with a dead, searching cold that made the three
men shiver as they stepped out of the warm tilt long before dawn and
strode off in single file into the silent, dark forest. After a while
daylight came, and then the sun, beautiful but cheerless, appeared
above the eastern hills to reveal the white splendour of the world and
make the frost-hung fir trees and bushes scintillate and sparkle like
a gem-hung fairy-land. But the three men saw none of this. Before them
lay a black, unknown horror that they dreaded, yet hurried on to meet.
The air breathed a mystery that they could not fathom. Their hearts
were weighted with a nameless dread.
Their pace never once slackened and not a word was spoken until after
several hours the first tilt came suddenly into view, when Dick said
laconically:
"No smoke. He's not here."
"An' no signs o' his bein' on th' trail since th' storm," added Ed.
"No footin' t' mark un at all," assented Dick. "What's happened has
happened before th' last snow."
"Aye, before th' last snow.
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