Walter Hine understood it clearly. For Garratt Skinner
suddenly stripped off his coat, passed it round Hine's shoulders and
then, baring his own breast, clasped Hine to it that he might impart to
him some warmth from his own body.
Thus they were found by the rescue party; and the story of Garratt
Skinner's great self-sacrifice was long remembered in Courmayeur.
Garratt Skinner watched the men mounting and wondered who they were. He
recognized his own guide, Pierre Delouvain, but who were the others, how
did they come there on a morning so forbidding? Who was the tall man who
walked last but one? And as the party drew nearer, he saw and understood.
But he did not change from his attitude. He waited until they were close.
Then he and Hilary Chayne exchanged a look.
"You?" said Garratt Skinner.
"Yes--" Chayne paused. "Yes, Mr. Strood," he said.
And in those words all was said. Garratt Skinner knew that his plan was
not merely foiled, but also understood. He stood up and looked about him,
and even to Chayne's eyes there was a dignity in his quiet manner, his
patience under defeat. For Garratt Skinner, rogue though he was, the
mountains had their message. All through that long night, while he sat by
the side of his victim, they had been whispering it. Whether bound in
frost beneath the stars, or sparkling to the sun, or gray under a sky of
clouds, or buried deep in flakes of whirling snow, they spoke to him
always of the grandeur of their indifference.
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