Thus would Garratt Skinner have bidden his friends leave
him, only in tones less tremulous, and very likely with a laugh, turning
back, as it were, to snap his fingers as he stepped out of the world.
Thus, therefore, Walter Hine sought to bear himself.
"Curious," said Garratt Skinner with interest, but with no stronger
feeling at all. "Are you in pain, Wallie?"
"Dreadful pain."
"We must wait. Perhaps help will come!"
The day wore on, but what the time was Garratt Skinner could not tell.
His watch and Hine's had both stopped with the cold, and the dull,
clouded sky gave him no clue. The last of the food was eaten, the last
drop of the brandy drunk. It was bitterly cold. If only the snow would
hold off till morning! Garratt Skinner had only to wait. The night would
come and during the night Walter Hine would die. And even while the
thought was in his mind, he heard voices. To his amazement, to his alarm,
he heard voices! Then he laughed. He was growing light-headed.
Exhaustion, cold and hunger were telling their tale upon him. He was not
so young as he had been twenty years before. But to make sure he rose to
his knees and peered down the slope. He had been mistaken. The steep
snow-slopes stretched downward, wild and empty. Here and there black
rocks jutted from them; a long way down four black stones were spaced;
there was no living thing in that solitude.
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