Murray pulled up his pack, stopped, and looked about. His shoulders ached, and he thought his nose and lips were frozen. To rub his face was like rubbing marble.
Fine snow, dry like dust, had drifted behind the rocks and trees, but the glimmering surface was broken by a row of uneven holes. In front, a rise cut the dark sky. Lafarge had obviously crossed the rise, and in the brush and stones he could not use snowshoes. Murray’s snowshoes were fastened to his pack, but Fothergill did not know where his were, and he thought it important Murray had not remarked that they were gone. As a rule, if powder-fouling darkened a rifle muzzle and a buckle were not polished, Murray knew; but he was human, and the strain he bore was getting insupportable.
Fothergill’s ragged moccasins were deep in the
