"I'm awful far away," Joan whispered to herself, and, for the first
time in her life, she doubted her strength. "I don't rightly know
where I am." She looked back. There stood a high, familiar peak, but
so were the outlines of these mountains jumbled and changed that she
could not tell if Prosper's cañon lay north or south of Pierre's
homestead. The former was high up on the foothills, and Pierre's was
well down, above the river. From where she stood, there was no
river-bed in sight. She tried to remember the journey, but nothing
came to her except a confused impression of following, following,
following. Had they gone toward the river first and then turned north
or had they traveled close to the base of the giant range? The
ranger's cabin where they had spent the night, surely that ought to be
visible. If she went farther out, say beyond the wooded spur which
shut the mountain country from her sight, perhaps she would find
it.... She braced her quivering muscles and went on. The end of the
jutting foothills seemed to crawl forward with her. She plunged into
drifts, struggled up; sometimes the snow-plane seemed to stand up like
a wall in front of her, the far hills lolling like a dragon along its
top. She could not keep the breath in her lungs. Often she sank down
and rested; when things grew steady she got up and worked on. Each
time she rested, she crouched longer; each time made slower progress;
and always the goal she had set herself, the end of that jutting hill,
thrust itself out, nosed forward, sliding down to the plain. It began
to darken, but Joan thought that her sight was failing. The enormous
efforts she was making took every atom of her will. At last her
muscles refused obedience, her laboring heart stopped. She stood a
moment, swayed, fell, and this time she made no effort to rise. She
had become a dark spot on the snow, a lifeless part of the loneliness
and silence.
Above her, where the sharp peaks touched the clouds, there came a
widening rift showing a cold, turquoise clarity. The sun was just
setting and, as the cloud-banks lifted, strong shadows, intensely
blue, pointed across the plain of snow. A small, black, energetic
figure came out from among the firs and ran forward where the longest
shadow pointed. It looked absurdly tiny and anxious; futile, in its
pigmy haste, across the exquisite stillness. Joan, lying so still, was
acquiescent; this little striving thing rebelled. It came forward
steadily, following Joan's uneven tracks, stamping them down firmly to
make a solid path, and, as the sun dropped, leaving an immense
gleaming depth of sky, he came down and bent over the black speck that
was Joan....