The hotel was dark, but near by, in a smaller house, there shone a light! Tom hurried, with his last ounce of strength, to the door, and pounded.
The door was opened, and Tom almost fell in. A strong hand caught him, and steadied him while he got off his snow-shoes, and then steadied him to a chair.
"Well, who be you, and where"d you come from?" a voice asked.
Tom could see little but the warm lamplight. The room, the face of the man, were all a blur.
"Many Glacier, over Swift Current," he gasped. "Mills ate something last night--he"s awful sick--telephone to the superintendent--or somebody--send a doctor."
"You mean to tell me you"ve come over Swift Current since last night, in that snow, and then through the Chinook?"
"Yes--"phone for a doctor--quick!"
"Why didn"t you "phone from Many Glacier?"
"Wire"s on the b.u.m--can"t you hurry and "phone?" Tom almost wailed.
"Easy, son, easy," the voice steadied him. "n.o.body can start back now till mornin". I want to get this right. I can hardly believe it."
"Oh, you _got_ to believe it!" Tom cried.
The man rose and began to work at the stove. Presently he brought Tom a big cup of hot coffee, and a plate of food, and stood by while he drank and ate.
As the hot coffee and the food began to revive him, Tom told the whole story over again, more calmly, and the caretaker listened, his eyes big.
"Well, son," he said, "you"re all to the mustard. Now, if you"re able, we"ll go "phone."
He led the way, and Tom repeated his story to the Park superintendent"s office.
"Be ready to start back at daylight," a voice said. "If the Chinook"s cleared open water enough for the launch to get up the lake, we"ll pick you up where you are. Otherwise, meet us at the fork of the east and west trail at the head of the lake an hour after sunrise--that is, if you are up to going back with us."
"I"ll be there!" Tom said.
His new friend now took him back into the warm, lighted room, made him undress and give himself a good rub, and then put him to bed on a couch in the corner.
"If you"re goin" back over that trail to-morrow," he said, "you"ll need all the sleep you can get to-night."
"I guess you"re right," Tom answered, as he fell wearily, helplessly, upon the soft spring, and almost immediately felt his eyelids close of their own accord. That was the last he remembered till a hand on his shoulder was shaking him,--it seemed about five minutes later.
CHAPTER x.x.x--Tom Gets Back with the Doctor, and Mills Pulls Through--Then the Scouts Have To Leave for Home
"Time to get up," said the voice of the owner of the hand.
Tom opened his eyes. The room was still lighted by a lamp, but something told him it was morning, perhaps the gray light at the window. He rose stiffly, and helped his host get breakfast. Going out, he found the Chinook wind had pa.s.sed, but it had been blowing, apparently, a good while, for the lake was open water all the way insh.o.r.e now, except for a fringe of ice cakes piled up like ragged surf along the eastern side.
"The lake hadn"t frozen yet very far out, anyhow," the caretaker said.
"But the Chinook"s sure taken the snow down!"
It had. As if by magic, the eight or ten feet of snow that yesterday had covered everything except the trees was reduced to less than two. The air, too, while it had the sting of winter again, was not bitterly cold--just a nice winter temperature.
As the sun was beginning to redden the peaks above the lake, Tom heard the _put-put_ of a motor boat far off, and in half an hour a launch had worked in through the floating ice to the end of the pier and a ranger accompanied by a young man threw their packs on the pier and climbed out.
"_You_ the man that came over Swift Current yesterday?" the Ranger said, looking at Tom. "Why, you"re only a boy!"
"Well, I did it--and I"d do more"n that for Mr. Mills!" Tom answered.
"You were takin" chances on the Swift Current head wall," the Ranger said. "I"m mighty glad the Chinook came, before I have to go down that trail."
"I got sort of used to slides," Tom said, as they all fastened on their packs, and waved farewell to the caretaker. He told the Ranger and the doctor about their ride on the snowslide.
"Say, you"ve been havin" an excitin" time up there," the Ranger laughed.
"Wonder what"s happened since you left?"
"If Mills has ptomaine poisoning, nothing has happened," the doctor said. "He"s simply been wishing it would!"
They grew silent as the grind began up the canon trail through the forest. Tom"s tracks of yesterday, melted less than the unpacked snow, showed plainly, and often he had been way off the trail, taking short cuts ten feet up where he was clear of underbrush.
"Didn"t intend to," he said. "But the snow was so deep I couldn"t always see the trail, and just steamed straight ahead."
At noon they paused an hour for lunch and rest, and then picked up their loads again. The low sun was sinking behind Heaven"s Peak when they reached the top of the pa.s.s, and took off their snow-shoes, for the Chinook had stripped all the snow from the Divide, where the wind had previously blown it thin. On the head wall, they found only a few inches, and they were able to slide from one switchback to the next lower, thus cutting off the turns and descending with great rapidity.
But even so it was dark before they reached the cabin, and once more Tom was traveling on sheer nerve. So was the doctor, for that matter, though the Ranger seemed as fresh as when they started. They had been on the trail for twelve hours, with only one hour rest.
But Tom was the first up the steps and in the door.
Joe sprang up from a chair to greet him, and by the lamplight he could see Mills, on the couch, and heard him say, in a weak voice, "h.e.l.lo, Tom."
"Thank G.o.d!" Tom cried, and slumped down weary and exhausted on his pack.
The doctor went to work at once. "What have you done for him?" he asked Joe.
"Nothing much I could do," Joe said. "We gave him an emetic as soon as he was sick, and I gave him physic and hot water. The hot water seemed to ease him a little."
"Good," the doctor answered. "You couldn"t have done better. He"ll come around all right now. Sick, were you, Mills?"
Mills groaned for reply.
"When the Chinook came," Joe laughed, "I told him I thought a blizzard was going to hit us, and he said he hoped it would blow the cabin into the lake!"
Joe now hurried about getting supper and making up beds for the tired men, while Mills lay feebly on the couch and made Tom sit by him and tell about his trip.
"You shouldn"t "a" done it, boy," he kept saying. "You shouldn"t "a"
risked it for the old Ranger."
But that night they were roused by hearing poor Mills in the throes of another attack. The doctor hurried to him.