The searching party was already on the way over to Pine Glen, when Brian Oakley stopped at Sibyl's old home for Aaron King. The Ranger1, himself, had waited to receive the morning message from the Sheriff.
When the two men, following the Government trail that leads to the neighborhood where the girl's horse had been found, reached the fire-break on the summit of the Galenas, the officer said, "Aaron, you'll be of little use over there in that Pine Glen country, where you have never been." He had pulled up his horse and was looking at his companion, steadily2.
"Is there nothing that I can do, Brian?" returned the young man, hopelessly. "God, man! I _must_ do something! I _must_, I tell you!"
"Steady, old boy, steady," returned the mountaineer's calm voice. "The first thing you must do, you know, is to keep a firm grip on yourself. If you lose your nerve I'll have you on my hands too."
Under his companion's eye, the artist controlled himself. "You're right, Brian," he said calmly. "What do you want me to do? You know best, of course."
The officer, still watching him, said slowly, "I want you to spend the day on that point, up there,"--he pointed3 to the clump4 of pines,--"with this glass." He turned to take an extra field-glass from his saddle. Handing the glass to the other, he continued "You can see all over the country, on the Galena Valley side of this range, from there." Again he paused, as though reluctant to give the final word of his instructions.
The young man looked at him, questioningly. "Yes?"
The Ranger answered in a low tone, "You are to watch for buzzards, Aaron."
Aaron King went white. "Brian! You think--"
The answer came sharply, "I am not thinking. I don't dare think. I am only recognizing every possibility and letting nothing, _nothing_, get away from me. I don't want _you_ to think. I want you to do the thing that will be of greatest service. It's because I am afraid you will _think_, that I hesitate to assign you to the position."
The sharp words acted like a dash of cold water in the young man's face. Unconsciously, he straightened in his saddle. "Thank you, Brian. I understand. You can depend upon me."
"Good boy!" came the hearty5 and instant approval. "If you see anything, go to it; leaving a note here, under a stone on top of this rock; I'll find it to-night, when I come back. If nothing shows up, stay until dark, and then go down to Carleton's. I'll be in late. The rest of the party will stay over at Pine Glen."
Alone on the peak where he had sat with Sibyl the day of their last climb, Aaron King watched for the buzzards' telltale, circling flight--and tried not to think.
It was one o'clock when the artist--resting his eyes for a moment, after a long, searching look through the glass--caught, again, that flash of light in the blue haze7 that lay over Fairlands in the distant valley. Brian Oakley had said,--when they had seen it that first day of the search,--that it was a common sight; but the artist, his mind preoccupied8, watched the point of light with momentary9, idle interest.
Suddenly, he awoke to the fact that there seemed to be a timed regularity10 in the flashes. Into his mind came the memory of something he had read of the heliograph, and of methods of signalling with mirrors Closely, now, he watched--three flashes in quick succession--pause--two flashes--pause--one flash--pause--one flash--pause--two flashes--pause--three flashes--pause. For several minutes the artist waited, his eyes fixed11 on the distant spot under the haze. Then the flashes began again, repeating the same order: --- -- - - -- ---.
At the last flash, the man sprang to his feet, and searched the mountain peaks and spurs behind him. On lonely Granite12 Peak, at the far end of the Galena Range, a flash of light caught his eye--then another and another. With an exclamation13, he lifted his glass. He could distinguish nothing but the peak from which had come the flashes. He turned toward the valley to see a long flash and then--only the haze and the dark spot that he knew to be the orange groves14 about Fairlands.
Aaron King sank, weak and trembling, against the rock. What should he do? What could he do? The signals might mean much. They might mean nothing. Brian Oakley's words that morning, came to him; "I am recognizing every possibility, and letting nothing _nothing_, get away from me." Instantly, he was galvanized into life. Idle thinking, wondering, conjecturing15 could accomplish nothing.
Riding as fast as possible down to the boulder16 beside the trail, where he was to leave his message, he wrote a note and placed it under the rock. Then he set out, to ride the fire-break along the top of the range, toward the distant Granite Peak. An hour's riding took him to the end of the fire-break, and he saw that from there on he must go afoot.
Tying the bridle-reins over the saddle-horn, and fastening a note to the saddle, in case any one should find the horse, he turned the animal's head back the way he had come, and, with a sharp blow, started it forward. He knew that the horse--one of Carleton's--would probably make its way home. Turning, he set his face toward the lonely peak; carrying his canteen and what was left of his lunch.
There was no trail for his feet now. At times, he forced his way through and over bushes of buckthorn and manzanita that seemed, with their sharp thorns and tangled17 branches, to be stubbornly fighting him back. At times, he made his way along some steep slope, from pine to pine, where the ground was slippery with the brown needles, and where to lose his footing meant a fall of a thousand feet. Again, he scaled some rocky cliff, clinging with his fingers to jutting19 points of rock, finding niches20 and projections21 for his feet; or, with the help of vine and root and bush, found a way down some seemingly impossible precipice22. Now and then, from some higher point, he sighted Granite Peak. Often, he saw, far below, on one hand the great canyon23, and on the other the wide Galena Valley. Always he pushed forward. His face was scratched and stained; his clothing was torn by the bushes; his hands were bloody24 from the sharp rocks; his body reeked25 with sweat; his breath came in struggling gasps26; but he would not stop. He felt himself driven, as it were, by some inner power that made him insensible to hardship or death. Far behind him, the sun dropped below the sky-line of the distant San Gabriels, but he did not notice. Only when the dusk of the coming night was upon him, did he realize that the day was gone.
On a narrow shelf, in the lee of a great cliff, he hastily gathered material for a fire, and, with his back to the rock, ate a little of the food he carried. Far up on that wind-swept, mountain ridge27, the night was bitter cold. Again and again he aroused himself from the weary stupor28 that numbed29 his senses, and replenished30 the fire, or forced himself to pace to and fro upon the ledge31. Overhead, he saw the stars glittering with a strange brilliancy. In the canyon, far below, there were a few twinkling lights to mark the Carleton ranch18, and the old home of Sibyl, where Conrad Lagrange and Myra Willard waited. Miles away, the lights of the towns among the orange groves, twinkled like feeble stars in another feeble world. The cold wind moaned and wailed32 in the dark pines and swirled33 about the cliff in sudden gusts34. A cougar35 screamed somewhere on the mountainside below. An answering scream came from the ledge above his head. The artist threw more fuel upon his fire, and grimly walked his beat.
In the cold, gray dawn of that Friday morning, he ate a few mouthfuls of his scanty37 store of food and, as soon as it was light,--even while the canyon below was still in the gloom,--started on his way.
It was eleven o'clock when, almost exhausted38, he reached what he knew must be the peak that he had seen through his glass the day before. There was little or no vegetation upon that high, wind-swept point. The side toward the distant peak from which the artist had seen the signals, was an abrupt39 cliff--hundreds of feet of sheer, granite rock. From the rim36 of this precipice, the peak sloped gradually down and back to the edge of the pines that grew about its base. The ground in the open space was bare and hard.
Carefully, Aaron King searched--as he had seen the Ranger do--for signs. Beginning at a spot near the edge of the cliff, he worked gradually, back and forth40, in ever widening arcs, toward the pines below. He was almost ready to give up in despair, cursing himself for being such a fool as to think that he could pick up a trail, when, clearly marked in a bit of softer soil, he saw the print of a hob-nailed boot.
Instantly the man's weariness was gone. The long, hard way he had come was forgotten. Insensible, now, to hunger and fatigue41, he moved eagerly in the direction the boot-track pointed. He was rewarded by another track. Then, as he moved nearer the softer ground, toward the trees, another and another and then--
The man--worn by his physical exertion42, and by his days of mental anguish--for a moment, lost control of himself. Clearly marked, beside the broad track of the heavier, man's boot, was the unmistakable print of a smaller, lighter43 foot.
For a moment he stood with clenched44 fists and heaving breast; then, with grim eagerness, with every sense supernaturally alert, with nerves tense, quick eyes and ready muscles, he went forward on the trail.
* * * * *
It was after dark, that night, when Brian Oakley, on his way back to Clear Creek45, stopped at the rock where the artist had left his note.
Reaching the floor of the canyon, he crossed to tell Myra Willard and the novelist the result of the day's search. The men riding in the vicinity of Pine Glen had found nothing. It had been--as the Ranger expected--impossible to follow back for any distance on the track of the roaming horse, for the animal had been grazing about the Pine Glen neighborhood for at least a day. Over the note left by Aaron King, the mountaineer shook his head doubtfully. Aaron had done right to go. But for one of his inexperience, the way along the crest46 of the Galenas was practically impossible. If the young man had known, he could have made the trip much easier by returning to Clear Creek and following up to the head of that canyon, then climbing to the crest of the divide, and so around to Granite Peak. The Ranger, himself, would start, at daybreak, for the peak, by that route; and would come back along the crest of the range, to find the artist.
At Carleton's, they told the officer that Aaron's horse had come in. Jack47 Carleton and his father arrived from the country above Lone6 Cabin and Burnt Pine, a few minutes after Brian Oakley reached the ranch. It was agreed that Henry should join the searchers at Pine Glen, at daybreak--lest any one should have seen the artist's camp-fire, that night, and so lose precious time going to it--and that Jack should accompany the Ranger to Granite Peak.
Henry Carleton had gone on his way to Pine Glen, and Brian Oakley and Jack were in the saddle, ready to start up the canyon, the next morning, when a messenger from the Sheriff arrived. An automobile48 had been seen returning from the mountains, about two o'clock that night. There was only one man in the car.
"Jack," said the Ranger, "Aaron has got hold of the right end of this, with his mirror flashes. You've got to go up the canyon alone. Get to Granite Peak as quick as God will let you, and pick up the trail of whoever signalled from there; keeping one eye open for Aaron. I'm going to trail that automobile as far as it went, and follow whatever met or left it. We'll likely meet somewhere, over in the Cold Water country."
A minute later the two men who had planned to ride together were going in opposite directions.
Following the Fairlands road until he came to where the Galena Valley road branches off from the Clear Creek way, three miles below the Power-House at the mouth of the canyon, Brian Oakley found the tracks of an automobile--made without doubt, during the night just past. The machine had gone up the Galena Valley road, and had returned.
A little before noon, the officer stood where the automobile had stopped and turned around for the return trip. The place was well up toward the head of the valley, near the mouth of a canyon that leads upward toward Granite Peak. An hour's careful work, and the Ranger uncovered a small store of supplies; hidden a quarter of a mile up the canyon. There were tracks leading away up the side of the mountain. Turning his horse loose to find its way home; Brian Oakley, without stopping for lunch, set out on the trail.
* * * * *
High up on Granite Peak, Aaron King was bending over the print of a slender shoe, beside the track of a heavy hob-nailed boot. Somewhere in Clear Creek canyon, Jack Carleton was riding to gain the point where the artist stood. At the foot of the mountain, on the other side of the range, Brian Oakley was setting out to follow the faint trail that started at the supplies brought by the automobile, in the night, from Fairlands.
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ranger
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| n.国家公园管理员，护林员；骑兵巡逻队员 | |
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steadily
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| adv.稳定地；不变地；持续地 | |
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pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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clump
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| n.树丛，草丛；vi.用沉重的脚步行走 | |
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hearty
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| adj.热情友好的；衷心的；尽情的，纵情的 | |
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lone
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| adj.孤寂的，单独的；唯一的 | |
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haze
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| n.霾，烟雾；懵懂，迷糊；vi.(over)变模糊 | |
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preoccupied
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| adj.全神贯注的，入神的；被抢先占有的；心事重重的v.占据（某人）思想，使对…全神贯注，使专心于( preoccupy的过去式) | |
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momentary
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| adj.片刻的，瞬息的；短暂的 | |
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regularity
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| n.规律性，规则性；匀称，整齐 | |
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fixed
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| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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granite
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| adj.花岗岩，花岗石 | |
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exclamation
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| n.感叹号，惊呼，惊叹词 | |
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groves
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| 树丛，小树林( grove的名词复数 ) | |
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conjecturing
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| v. & n. 推测，臆测 | |
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boulder
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| n.巨砾；卵石，圆石 | |
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tangled
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| adj. 纠缠的，紊乱的 动词tangle的过去式和过去分词 | |
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ranch
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| n.大牧场，大农场 | |
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jutting
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| v.（使）突出( jut的现在分词 )；伸出；（从…）突出；高出 | |
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niches
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| 壁龛( niche的名词复数 )； 合适的位置[工作等]； （产品的）商机； 生态位（一个生物所占据的生境的最小单位） | |
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projections
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| 预测( projection的名词复数 )； 投影； 投掷； 突起物 | |
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precipice
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| n.悬崖，危急的处境 | |
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canyon
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| n.峡谷，溪谷 | |
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bloody
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| adj.非常的的；流血的；残忍的；adv.很；vt.血染 | |
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reeked
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| v.发出浓烈的臭气( reek的过去式和过去分词 )；散发臭气；发出难闻的气味 (of sth)；明显带有（令人不快或生疑的跡象） | |
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gasps
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| v.喘气( gasp的第三人称单数 )；喘息；倒抽气；很想要 | |
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ridge
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| n.山脊；鼻梁；分水岭 | |
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stupor
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| v.昏迷；不省人事 | |
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numbed
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| v.使麻木，使麻痹( numb的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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replenished
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| 补充( replenish的过去式和过去分词 )； 重新装满 | |
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ledge
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| n.壁架，架状突出物；岩架，岩礁 | |
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wailed
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| v.哭叫，哀号( wail的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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swirled
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| v.旋转，打旋( swirl的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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gusts
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| 一阵强风( gust的名词复数 )； （怒、笑等的）爆发； （感情的）迸发； 发作 | |
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cougar
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| n.美洲狮；美洲豹 | |
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rim
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| n.(圆物的)边，轮缘；边界 | |
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scanty
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| adj.缺乏的，仅有的，节省的，狭小的，不够的 | |
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exhausted
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| adj.极其疲惫的，精疲力尽的 | |
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abrupt
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| adj.突然的，意外的；唐突的，鲁莽的 | |
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forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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fatigue
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| n.疲劳，劳累 | |
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exertion
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| n.尽力，努力 | |
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43
lighter
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| n.打火机，点火器；驳船；v.用驳船运送；light的比较级 | |
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44
clenched
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| v.紧握，抓紧，咬紧( clench的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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creek
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| n.小溪，小河，小湾 | |
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46
crest
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| n.顶点；饰章；羽冠；vt.达到顶点；vi.形成浪尖 | |
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47
jack
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| n.插座，千斤顶，男人；v.抬起，提醒，扛举；n.（Jake）杰克 | |
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48
automobile
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| n.汽车，机动车 | |
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