The Chalice Of Courage Part 28

"Armstrong here," continued the other intent upon his purpose, "says he can't wait until the spring and the snows melt, he is going into the mountains now to look for Enid."

Kirkby did not love Armstrong, he did not care for him a little bit, but there was something in the bold hardihood of the man, something in the way which he met the reckless challenge of the mountains that the old man and all the others felt that moved the inmost soul of the hardy frontiersman. He threw an approving glance at him.

"I tell him that it is absurd, impossible; that he risks his life for nothing, and I want you to tell him the same thing. You know more about the mountains than either of us."

"Mr. Kirkby," quavered Stephen Maitland, "allow me. I don't want to influence you against your better judgment, but if you could sit here as I have done and think that maybe she is there and perhaps alive still, and in need, you would not say a word to deter him."

"Why, Steve," expostulated Robert Maitland, "surely you know I would risk anything for Enid; somehow it seems as if I were being put in the selfish position by my opposition."

"No, no," said his brother, "it isn't that. You have your wife and children, but this young man--"

"Well, what do you say, Kirkby? Not that it makes any difference to me what anybody says. Come, we are wasting time," interposed Armstrong, who, now that he had made up his mind, was anxious to be off.

"Jim Armstrong," answered Kirkby decidedly, "I never thought much of you in the past, an' I think sence you've put out this last projick of yourn that I'm ent.i.tled to call you a d.a.m.n fool, w'ich you are, an' I'm another, for I'm goin' into the mountains with you."

"Oh, thank G.o.d!" cried Stephen Maitland fervently.

"I know you don't like me," answered Armstrong; "that's neither here nor there. Perhaps you have cause to dislike me, perhaps you have not; I don't like you any too well myself; but there is no man on earth I'd rather have go with me on a quest of this kind than you, and there's my hand on it."

Kirkby shook it vigorously.

"This ain't committin' myself," he said cautiously. "So far's I'm concerned you ain't good enough for Miss Maitland, but I admires your spirit, Armstrong, an' I'm goin' with you. Tain't no good, twon't produce nothin', most likely we'll never come back agin; but jest the same I'm goin' along; n.o.body's goin' to show me the trail; my nerve and grit w'en it comes to helpin' a young feemale like that girl is as good as anybody's I guess. You're her father," he drawled on, turning to Stephen Maitland, "an' I ain't no kin to her, but by gosh, I believe I can understand better than anyone else yere what you are feelin'."

"Kirkby," said Robert Maitland, smiling at the other two, "you have gone clean back on me. I thought you had more sense. But somehow I guess it's contagious, for I am going along with you two myself."

"And I, cannot I accompany you?" pleaded Stephen Maitland, eagerly drawing near to the other three.

"Not much," said old Kirkby promptly. "You ain't got the stren'th, ol'

man, you don't know them mountains, nuther; you'd be helpless on a pair of snow shoes, there ain't anything you could do, you'd jest be a drag on us. Without sayin' anything about myself, w'ich I'm too modest for that, there ain't three better men in Colorado to tackle this job than Jim Armstrong an' Bob Maitland an'--well, as I said, I won't mention no other names."

"G.o.d bless you all, gentlemen," faltered Stephen Maitland. "I think perhaps I may have been wrong, a little prejudiced against the west, you are men that would do honor to any family, to any society in Philadelphia or anywhere else."

"Lord love ye," drawled Kirkby, his eyes twinkling, "there ain't no three men on the Atlantic seaboard that kin match up with two of us yere, to say nothin' of the third."

"Well," said Robert Maitland, "the thing now is to decide on what's to be done."

"My plan," said Armstrong, "is to go to the old camp."

"Yep," said Kirkby, "that's a good point of deeparture, as my seafarin'

father down Cape Cod way used to say, an' wot's next."

"I am going up the canon instead of down," said the man, with a flash of inspiration.

"That ain't no bad idea nuther," a.s.sented the old man; "we looked the ground over pretty thoroughly down the canon, mebbe we can find something up it."

"And what do you propose to take with you?" asked Maitland.

"What we can carry on the backs of men. We will make a camp somewhere about where you did. We can get enough husky men up at Morrison who will pack in what we want and with that as a basis we will explore the upper reaches of the range."

"And when do we start?"

"There is a train for Morrison in two hours," answered Armstrong. "We can get what we want in the way of sleeping bags and equipment between now and then if we hurry about it."

"Ef we are goin' to do it, we might as well git a move on us," a.s.sented Kirkby, making ready to go.

"Right," answered Robert Maitland grimly. "When three men set out to make fools of themselves the sooner they get at it and get over with it the better. I've got some business matters to settle, you two get what's needed and I'll bear my share."

A week later a little band of men on snow shoes, wrapped in furs to their eyes, every one heavily burdened with a pack, staggered into the clearing where once had been pitched the Maitland camp. The place was covered with snow of course, but on a shelf of rock half way up the hogback, they found a comparatively level clearing and there, all working like beavers, they built a rude hut which they covered with canvas and then with tightly packed snow and which would keep the three who remained from freezing to death. Fortunately they were favored by a brief period of pleasant weather and a few days served to make a sufficiently habitable camp.

Maitland, Kirkby and Armstrong worked with the rest. There was no thought of search at first. Their lives depended upon the erection of a suitable shelter and it was not until the helpers, leaving their burdens behind them, had departed that the three men even considered what was to be done next.

"We must begin a systematic search to-morrow," said Armstrong decisively as the three men sat around the cheerful fire in the hut.

"Yes," a.s.sented Maitland. "Shall we go together, or separately?"

"Separately, of course. We are all hardy and experienced men, nothing is apt to happen to us, we will meet here every night and plan the next day's work. What do you say, Kirkby?"

The old man had been quietly smoking while the others talked. He smiled at them in a way which aroused their curiosity and made them feel that he had news for them.

"While you was puttin' the finis.h.i.+n' touches on this yere camp, I come acrost a heap o' stuns, that somehow the wind had swept bare. There was a big drift in front of it w'ich kep' us from seein' it afore; it was built up in the open w'ere there want no trees, an' in our lumberin'

operations we want lookin' that-a-way. I came acrost a bottle by chance an'--"

"Well, for G.o.d's sake, old man," cried Armstrong impatiently, "what did you find in it, anything?"

"This," answered Kirkby, carefully producing a folded sc.r.a.p of paper from his leather vest.

Armstrong fell on it ravenously, and as Maitland bent over him they both read these words by the fire light.

"_Miss Enid Maitland, whose foot is so badly crushed as to prevent her traveling, is safe in a cabin at the head of this canon. I put this notice here to rea.s.sure any who may be seeking her as to her welfare. Follow the stream up to its source._"

_Wm. Berkeley Newbold._

"Thank G.o.d!" exclaimed Robert Maitland.

"You called me a d.a.m.n fool, Kirkby," said Armstrong, his eyes gleaming.

"What do you think of it now?"

"It's the d.a.m.n fool, I find," said Kirkby sapiently, "that gener'ly gits there. Providence seems to be a-watchin' over 'em."

"You said you chanced on this paper, Jack," continued Maitland, "it looks to me like the deliberate intention of Almighty G.o.d."

"I reckon so," answered the other simply. "You see He's got to look after all the d.a.m.n fools on earth to keep 'em from doin' too much damage to theirselves an' to others in this yere crooked trail of a world."

"Let us start now," urged Armstrong.

"Tain't possible," said the old man, taking another puff at his pipe, and only a glistening of the eye betrayed the joy that he felt; otherwise his phlegmatic calm was unbroken, his demeanor just as undisturbed as it always was. "We'd jest throw away our lives a wanderin' round these yere mountains in the dark, we've got to have light an' clear weather. Ef it should be snowin' in the mornin' we'd have to wait until it cleared."

"I won't wait a minute," cried Armstrong. "At daybreak, weather or no weather, I start."