The Promise Page 42

  CHAPTER XLI

  THE BLIZZARD

  At eleven o'clock in the morning Bill Carmody ordered his teams to thestables.

  At twelve o'clock, when the men crowded into the grub-shack, the airwas filled with fine particles of flinty snow, and the roar of the windthrough the pine-tops was the mighty roar of the surf of a poundingsea.

  At one o'clock the boss called "gillon," and with loud shouts and roughhorse-play, the men made a rush for the bunk-house.

  At two o'clock Daddy Dunnigan thrust his head through the doorway ofthe shop where Bill, under the blacksmith's approving eye, wascompleting a lesson in the proper welding of the broken link of a logchain.

  With a mysterious quirk of the head he motioned the foreman to follow,and led the way to the cook-shack, where Blood River Jack waited withlowering brow.

  "D'yez happin to know is th' b'y up yonder?" asked the old Irishman,with a jerk of his thumb in the direction of the house. Bill beat thedry snow from his clothing as he stared from one to the other.

  "The boy!" he cried. "What do you mean? Come--out with it--_quick_!"

  "It is that my rifle and belt have gone from under the bunk," BloodRiver Jack answered. "They were taken while I slept. The boy did notcome to dinner in the grub-shack. Is it that he eats to-day with hispeople?"

  "Good Lord! I don't know! Haven't you seen him, Daddy?"

  "Not since mebbe it's noine o'clock in th' marnin', an' he wint to th'bunk-house. I thoucht he wuz wid Jack." Bill thought rapidly and turnedto the old man.

  "Here, you, Daddy--get a move on now!" he ordered. "That ginger cake ofyours that the kid likes, hustle some of it into a pail or a basket orsomething, and carry it up to the house. Tell them it's for Charlie,and you'll find out if he's there. If not, get out by saying that he'sprobably in the bunk-house, and get back here as quick as you can makeit. There is no use in alarming the people up there--yet."

  "Here you, Jack, go help the old man along. It's a tough job buckingthat storm even for a short distance. Come now, beat it!"

  After ten minutes the two returned, breathless from their short battlewith the storm.

  "He ain't there," gasped the old man and sank down upon the wood-boxwith his head in his hands. "God help um, he's out in ut!"

  "I'm going to the office," said the foreman and stepped out into thewhirling snow.

  "Man! Man!" called Daddy, springing to his feet; "ye ain't a goin' tothry----" The door banged upon his words and he sagged slowly onto hisrough seat.

  A few minutes later Appleton stamped into the cook-shack. "Did you findhim, Daddy?" he asked.

  The old man shook his head. "He ain't in th' camp," he muttered. "Hetuk Jack's gun whilst he slep' an' ut's huntin' he's gone--Lard hilpum!"

  "Where is Bill?" the lumberman inquired.

  "Av ye're quick, ye may catch um in th' office--av ye ain't Oi'mthinkin' ye niver will foind um. Be th' luk in his eye, he's goneafther th' b'y."

  The lumberman plunged again into the storm and made his way to theoffice. It was empty. As he turned heavily away the door opened andEthel Manton flung herself into the room, gasping with exertion. Givingno heed to her uncle's presence, the girl's glance hurriedly swept theinterior.

  Her hand clutched at the bosom of her snow-powdered coat as she notedthat the faded mackinaw was gone from its accustomed peg and thesnowshoes from their corner behind the door.

  Instantly the truth flashed through her brain--Charlie was lost in theseething blizzard and somewhere out in the timber Bill Carmody wassearching for him.

  With a smothered moan she flung herself onto the bunk and buried herface in the blankets.

  * * * * *

  The situation the foreman faced when he plunged into the whirlingblizzard in search of the boy, while calling for the utmost in man'swoodsmanship and endurance, was not so entirely hopeless as wouldappear. He remembered the intense interest evinced by the boy a fewdays before, when he had listened to the description of the rocky ledgewhich was the home of the _loup-cerviers_, and the eagerness with whichhe begged to visit the place.

  What was more natural, he argued, than that the youngster, findinghimself in unexpected possession of a rifle and ammunition, had decidedto explore the spot and do a little hunting on his own account?

  The full fury of the storm had not broken until noon, and he figuredthat the boy would have had ample time to reach the bluff where hecould find temporary shelter among the numerous caves of its rockyformation.

  Upon leaving the office, the boss headed straight for the rollway, andthe mere holding his direction taxed his brain to the exclusion of allother thoughts.

  The air was literally filled with flying snow fine as dust, whichformed an opaque screen through which his gaze penetrated scarcely anarm's reach.

  Time and again he strayed from the skidway and brought up sharplyagainst a tree, but each time he altered his course and flounderedahead until he found himself suddenly upon the steep slope where thebank inclined to the river.

  When Bill Carmody turned down-stream the gravity of his undertakingforced itself upon him. The fury of the storm was like nothing he hadever experienced.

  The wind-whipped particles cut and seared his face like a shower ofred-hot needles, and the air about him was filled with a dull roar,mighty in volume but strangely muffled by the very denseness of thesnow.

  It took all his strength to push himself forward against the terrificforce of the wind which seemed to sweep from every quarter at once intoa whirling vortex of which he himself was the center.

  One moment the air was sucked from his lungs by a mighty vacuum, andthe next the terrible compression upon his chest caused him to gasp forbreath.

  The fine snow that he inhaled with each breath stung his lungs and hetied his heavy woolen muffler across his mouth. He stumbled frequentlyand floundered about to regain his balance. He lost all sense ofdirection and fought blindly on, each bend of the river bringing himblunderingly against one or the other of its brush-grown banks.

  The only thought of his benumbed brain was to make the rock ledgesomewhere ahead. It grew dark, and the blackness, laden with theblinding, stinging particles, added horror to his bewilderment.

  Suddenly his snowshoe struck against a hard object, and he pitchedheavily forward upon his face and lay still. He realized then that hewas tired.

  Never in his life had he been so utterly body-weary, and the snow wassoft--soft and warm--and the pelting ceased.

  He thrust his arm forward into a more comfortable position andencountered a rock, and sluggishly through his benumbed facultiespassed a train of associated ideas--rock, rock ledge, _loup-cerviers_,the boy! With a mighty effort he roused himself from the growinglethargy and staggered blindly to his feet.

  He filled his lungs, tore the ice-incrusted muffler from his lips and,summoning all his strength, gave voice to the long call of the woods:

  "Who-o-o-p-e-e-e!"

  But the cry was cut off at his lips. The terrific force of the shiftinggusts hurled the sound back into his throat so that it came to his ownears faint and far. Again and again he called, and each time the feebleeffort was drowned in the dull roar of the storm.

  An unreasoning rage at the futility of it overcame him and he plungedblindly ahead, unheeding, stumbling, falling, rising to his feet andstaggering among the tumbled rocks at the foot of the bluff--and thenalmost in his ear came the sharp, quick sound of a rifle-shot andanother and another, at a second apart--the distress signal of theNorthland.