Callahan had joined his chief to watch the situation, and they
speculated as to how the four would get out of the gulf in which they
were completely hemmed. Gertrude and her father stood near.
The eyes of the two bronzed railroad men at her side were like pilot
guides to Gertrude. When she lost the wayfarers in the gullies or
along the narrow defiles that gave them passage between towering rocks,
their eyes restored the plodding line. Callahan was the first to
detect the change from the expected course. "They are working east,"
said he, after a moment's careful observation.
"East?" echoed Bucks. "You mean west."
Callahan hung to his glass. "No," he repeated, "east--and south.
Here."
Bucks took the glass and looked a long time. "I do not understand,"
said he; "they are certainly working east. What can they be after,
east? Well, they can't go very far that way without bridging the
Devil's Cañon. Callahan," he exclaimed, with sure instinct, "they will
head south. Walt now till they appear again."
He relinquished the glass to explain to Mr. Brock where next to look
for them. There was a long interval during which they did not
reappear. Then the little file emerging from the shadow of a rock
skirted a field of snow straight to the south. There were but three
men in line. One, a little ahead, breaking path; following, two large
men tramping close together, the foremost stooping under the weight of
a man lying face upward on his back, while the man behind supported the
legs under his arms.
"They are carrying Morris Blood. He is hurt--that was to be expected.
What?" exclaimed Bucks, hardly a moment afterward, "they are crossing
the snow. Callahan, by heaven, they are walking for the south side of
Pilot, that's what it means. It is a forced march; they are making for
the mines."
Mount Pilot, from the crest that divides at Devil's Gap, rises abruptly
in a three-faced peak, the pinnacle of which lies to the south.
Several hundred feet above the base lie the group of gold-mines behind
the mountain, and a short railroad spur blasted across the southern
face runs to them from Glen Tarn. Below, the mountain wall breaks in
long steps almost vertically to the base, toward which Glover's party
was heading.
The move made new dispositions necessary. Orders flew from Bucks like
curlews, for it was more essential than ever to open the hill speedily.
The private car was run across the Hog's Back, and the news sent to the
rotary crew with injunctions to push with all effort as far at least as
the mine switch, that help might be sent out on the spur to meet the
party on the climb.
The increased activity apparent far up and down the mountain as the
word went round, the bringing up of the last reserve engines for the
hill battery, the effort to get into communication by telegraph with
the mine hospital and Glen Tarn Springs, the feverish haste of the
officials in the car to make the new dispositions, all indicated to
Gertrude the approach of a crisis--the imminence of a supreme effort to
save one life if the endeavor enlisted the men and resources of the
whole division. New gangs of shovellers strung on flat-cars were being
pushed forward. Down the hill, spent and disabled engines were
returning from the front, and while they took sidings, fresh engines,
close-coupled, steamed slowly like leviathans past them up the hill.