And as the fight waxes the fog rises and a grey darkness settles over the valley. The forest is hidden, the hills are gone, the sun is obscured, and a fierce desolation reigns. Darker and darker it becomes as the blizzard gains force. And the cries of the forest beasts add to the chaos and din of the mountain storm.
The driving cold penetrates, with the bite of invisible arrows, to the interior of the dugout. The two men who sit within pile up the fuel in the box stove which alone makes life possible for them in such weather. The roof groans and bends beneath the blast. Under the rattling door a thin carpet of snow has edged its way in, while through the crack above it a steady rain of moisture falls as the snow encounters the rising heat of the stifling atmosphere.
“I knew it ’ud come, Nick,” observed one of the men, as he shut the stove, after carefully packing several cord-wood sticks within its insatiable maw.
He was of medium height but of large muscle. His appearance was that of a man in the prime of life. His hair, above a face tanned and lined by exposure to the weather, was long and grey, as was the beard which curled about his chin. He was clad in a shirt of rough-tanned buckskin and trousers of thick moleskin. His feet were shod with moccasins which were brilliantly beaded. Similar bead-work adorned the front of the weather-proof shirt.
His companion was a slightly younger and somewhat larger man. The resemblance he bore to his comrade indicated the relationship between them. They were brothers.
Ralph and Nicol Westley were born and bred in that dugout. Their father and mother were long since dead, dying in the harness of the toil they had both loved, and which they bequeathed to their children. These two men had never seen the prairie. They had never left their mountain fastnesses. They had never even gone south to where the railway bores its way through the Wild.
They had been born to the life of the trapper and knew no other. They lived and enjoyed their lives, for they were creatures of Nature who understood and listened when she spoke. They had no other education. The men lived together harmoniously, practically independent of all other human companionship.
At long intervals, when pelts had accumulated and supplies had run low, they visited the cabin of an obscure trader. Otherwise they were cut off from the world and rejoiced in their isolation.
“Yes, we’ve had the warnin’ this week past,” rejoined Nick solemnly, as he affectionately polished the butt of his rifle with a rag greased with bear’s fat. “Them ’patch’ winds at sunrise an’ sunset ain’t sent fer nothin’. I ’lows Hell’s hard on the heels o’ this breeze. When the wind quits there’ll be snow, an’ snow means us bein’ banked in. Say, she’s boomin’. Hark to her. You can hear her tearin’ herself loose from som’eres up on the hilltops.”
Nick looked round the hut as though expecting to see the storm break through the walls of their shelter. A heavy storm always affected the superstitious side of these men’s natures. A blizzard to them was as the Evil Spirit of the mountains. They always possessed the feeling, somewhere deep down in their hearts, that the attack of a storm was directed against them. And the feeling was a mute acknowledgment that they were interlopers in Nature’s most secret haunts.
Ralph had planted himself upon an upturned bucket, and sat with his hands thrust out towards the stove. He was smoking, and his eyes were directed in a pensive survey at a place where the black iron of the stove was steadily reddening.
Presently he looked up.
“Ha’ ye fed the dogs, lad?” he asked.
“Ay.”
The two relapsed into silence. The creaking of the hut was like the protest of a wooden ship riding a heavy storm at sea. The men shifted their positions with every fresh burst which struck their home; it was as though they personally felt each shock, and their bones ached with the strain of battle. The smoke curled up slowly from Ralph’s pipe and a thin cloud hovered just beneath the roof. The red patch on the stove widened and communicated itself to the stovepipe. Presently the trapper leaned forward, and, closing the damper, raked away the ashes with a chip of wood.
Nick looked up and laid his gun aside, and, rising, stepped over to the stove.
“Makes ye feel good to hear the fire roarin’ when it’s stormin’ bad. Ther’ ain’t no tellin’ when this’ll let up.” He jerked his head backward to imply the storm.
“It’s sharp. Mighty sharp,” replied his brother. “Say–”
He broke off and bent his head in an attitude of keen attention. He held his pipe poised in his right hand, whilst his eyes focused themselves on a side of bacon which hung upon the wall.
Nick had turned towards the door. His attitude was intent also; he, too, was listening acutely.
The howling elements continued to beat furiously upon the house and the din was appalling, but these two men, keen-eared, trained to the life of their mountains, had heard a sound which was not the storm, nor of the forest creatures doling their woful cries beneath the shelter of the woods.
Slowly Ralph’s eyes moved from the bacon and passed over the smoke stained wooden wall of the hut. Nor did they pause again until they looked into the eyes of his brother. Here they fixed themselves and the working brains of the two men seemed to communicate one with the other. Neither of them was likely to be mistaken. To hear a sound in those wilds was to recognize it unerringly.
“A cry,” said Nick.
“Some ’un out in the storm,” replied Ralph.
“A neche.”
Ralph shook his head.
“A neche would ’a’ know’d this was comin’. He’d ’a’ made camp. ’Tain’t a neche. Hark!”
The beat of the storm seemed to drown all other sounds, and yet those two men listened. It is certain that what they heard would have been lost to most ears.
Ralph rose deliberately. There was no haste, nor was there any hesitation. His intention was written on his face.
“The lifeline,” he said briefly.
Out into the awful storm the two men plunged a few moments later. There was no thought of their own comfort in their minds. They had heard a cry–the cry of a human being, and they were prepared to lend such aid as lay in their power. They did not pause to wonder at a voice other than their own in those regions. Some one was caught in the storm, and they knew that such a disaster meant certain death to the poor wretch if they did not go to the rescue. The terror of the blizzard was expressed in the significant words Ralph had uttered. Even these hardy men of the wild dared not venture beyond their door without the lifeline which was always kept handy.
With their furs covering every part of them but their eyes and noses they plunged into the fog of blinding snow. They could see nothing around them–they could not even see their own feet. Each gripped a long pole, and used his other hand to grasp the line.
They moved down the beaten path with certain step. Three yards from the dugout and the house was obscured. The wind buffeted them from every direction, and they were forced to bend their heads in order to keep their eyes open.
The whole attack of the wind now seemed to centre round those two struggling human creatures. It is the way of the blizzard. It blows apparently from every direction, and each obstacle in its chaotic path becomes the special object of its onslaught.
A forceful gust, too sudden to withstand, would drive them, blind, groping, from their path; and a moment later they would be hurled like shuttlecocks in the opposite direction. They staggered under the burden of the storm, and groped for the solid foothold of the track with their poles; and so they slowly gained their way.
Their strenuous life had rendered them