A few big drops began to fall, and Evelyn cut her sister"s explanations short.
"It strikes me that we"d better make a start at once," she said.
They set out, Mabel and Carroll leading, and drawing farther away from the two behind. The rain began in earnest as they descended. Rock slope and scattered stones were slippery, and Vane found it difficult to keep his footing on some of their lichened surfaces. He was relieved, however, to see that his companion seldom hesitated, and they made their way downward cautiously, until near the spot where the three ridges diverged they walked into a belt of drifting mist. The peak above them was suddenly blotted out, and Evelyn bade Vane hail Carroll and Mabel, who had disappeared. He sent a shout ringing through the vapor, and caught a faint and unintelligible answer. A flock of sheep fled past and dislodged a rush of sliding stones. Vane heard the stones rattle far down the hillside, and when he called again a blast of chilly wind whirled his voice away. There was a faint echo above him and then silence.
"It looks as if they were out of hearing; and the slope ahead of us seems uncommonly steep by the way those stones went down. Do you think Mabel has taken Carroll down the Stanghyll ridge?"
"I can"t tell," answered Evelyn. "It"s comforting to remember that she knows it better than I do. I think we ought to make for the Hause; there"s only one place that"s really steep. Keep up to the left a little; the Scale Crags must be close beneath us."
They moved on circ.u.mspectly, skirting what seemed to be a pit of profound depth in which dim vapors whirled, while the rain, growing thicker, beat into their faces.
CHAPTER VII
STORM-STAYED
The weather was not the only thing that troubled Vane as he stumbled on through the mist. Any unathletic tourist from the cities could have gone up without much difficulty by the way they had ascended, but it was different coming down on the opposite side of the mountain. There, their route led across banks of sharp-pointed stones that rested lightly on the steep slope, interspersed with outcropping rocks which were growing dangerously slippery, and a wilderness of crags pierced by three great radiating chasms lay beneath.
After half an hour"s arduous scramble, he decided that they must be close upon the top of the last rift, and he stood still for a minute looking about him. The mist was now so thick that he could see scarcely thirty yards ahead, but the way it drove past him indicated that it was blowing up a hollow. On one hand a rampart of hillside loomed dimly out of it; in front there was a dark patch that looked like the face of a dripping rock; and between that and the hill a boggy stretch of gra.s.s ran back into the vapor. Vane glanced at his companion with some concern. Her skirt was heavy with moisture and the rain dripped from the brim of her hat, but she smiled at him rea.s.suringly.
"It"s not the first time I"ve got wet," she said cheeringly; "and you"re not responsible--it"s Mopsy"s fault."
Vane felt relieved on one account He had imagined that a woman hated to feel draggled and untidy, and he was willing to own that in his case fatigue usually tended toward shortness of temper. Though the scramble had scarcely taxed his powers, he fancied that Evelyn had already done as much as one could expect of her.
"I must prospect about a bit. Scardale"s somewhere below us; but, if I remember, it"s an awkward descent to the head of it; and I"m not sure of the right entrance to the Hause."
"I"ve only once been down this way, and that was a long while ago,"
Evelyn replied.
Vane left her and plodded away across the gra.s.s, sinking ankle-deep in the spongy moss among the roots of it When he had grown scarcely distinguishable in the haze he turned and waved his hand.
"I know where we are--almost to the head of the beck!" he called.
Evelyn joined him at the edge of a trickle of water splashing in a peaty hollow, and they followed it down, seeing only odd strips of hillside amid the vapor. At length the ground grew softer, and Vane, going first, sank among the long green moss almost to his knees. It made a bubbling, sucking sound as he drew out his feet.
"That won"t do! Stand still, please! I"ll try a little to the right."
He tried in one or two directions; but wherever he went he sank over his boots. Coming back he informed his companion that they would better go straight ahead.
"I know there"s no bog worth speaking of--the Hause is a regular tourist track."
He stopped and stripped off his jacket.
"First of all, you must put this on; I"m sorry I didn"t think of it before."
Evelyn demurred, and Vane rolled up the jacket.
"You have to choose between doing what I ask and watching me pitch it into the beck. I"m a rather determined person. It would be a pity to throw the thing away, particularly as the rain hasn"t got through it yet."
She yielded, and he held the jacket while she put it on.
"There"s another thing," he added. "I"m going to carry you for the next hundred yards, or possibly farther."
"No," replied Evelyn firmly. "On that point, my determination is as strong as yours."
Vane made a sign of acquiescence.
"You may have your way for a minute; I expect that will be long enough."
He was correct. Evelyn moved forward a pace or two, and then stopped with the skirt she had gathered up brushing the quivering emerald moss, and her boots, which were high ones, hidden in the mire. She had some difficulty in pulling them out. Then Vane coolly picked her up.
"All you have to do is to keep still for the next few minutes," he informed her in a most matter-of-fact voice.
Evelyn did not move, though she recognized that had he shown any sign of self-conscious hesitation she would at once have shaken herself loose. As it was, the fact that he appeared perfectly at ease and unaware that he was doing anything unusual was rea.s.suring. Then as he plodded forward she wondered at his steadiness, for she remembered that when she had once fallen heavily when nailing up a clematis her father, who was a vigorous man, had found it difficult to carry her upstairs. Vane had never carried any woman in his arms before, but he had occasionally had to pack--as it is termed in the West--hundred-and-forty-pound flour bags over a rocky portage, and, though the comparison did not strike him as a happy one, he thought the girl was not quite so heavy as that. He was conscious of a curious thrill and a certain stirring of his blood, but this, he decided, must be sternly ignored. His task was not an easy one, and he stumbled once or twice, but he accomplished it and set the girl down safely on firmer ground.
"Now," he said, "there"s only the drop to the dale, but we must endeavor to keep out of the beck."
His voice and air were unembarra.s.sed, though he was breathless, and Evelyn fancied that in this and the incident of the jacket he had at last revealed the forceful, natural manners of the West. It was the first glimpse she had had of them, and she was not displeased. The man had merely done what was most advisable, with practical sense.
A little farther on, a shoot of falling water swept out of the mist above and came splashing down a crag, spread out in frothing threads. It flowed across their path, reunited in a deep gully, and then fell tumultuously into the beck, which was now ten or twelve feet below them. They clung to the rock as they traced it downward, stepping cautiously from ledge to ledge and from slippery stone to stone. At times a stone plunged into the mist beneath them, and Vane grasped the girl"s arm and held out a steadying hand, but he was never fussy nor needlessly concerned. When she wanted help, it was offered at the right moment; but that was all. Had she been alarmed, her companion"s manner would have been more comforting than persistent solicitude. He was, she decided, one who could be relied upon in an emergency.
"You are sure-footed," she remarked, when they stopped a minute or two for breath.
Vane laughed as he glanced into the vapor-rilled depths beneath. They stood on a ledge, two or three yards in width, with a tall crag behind them and the beck, which had rapidly grown larger, leaping half seen from rock to rock in the rift in front.
"I was born among these fells; and I have helped to pack various kinds of mining truck over much rougher mountains."
"Have you ever gone up as steep a place as this with a load?"
"If I remember rightly, the top of the Hause drops about three hundred feet, and we"ll probably spend half an hour in reaching the valley. There was one western divide that it took us several days to cross, dragging a tent, camp gear and provisions in relays. Its foot was wrapped in tangled brush that tore most of our clothes to rags, and the last pitch was two thousand feet of rock where the snow lay waist-deep in the hollows."
"Two thousand feet! That dwarfs our little drop to the Hause. What were you doing so far up in the ranges?"
"Looking for a copper mine."
"And you found one?"
"No; not that time. As a rule, the mineral trail leads poor men to greater poverty, and sometimes to a grave; but once you have set your feet on it you follow it again. The thing becomes an obsession; you feel forced to go."
"Even if you bring nothing back?"
Vane laughed.
"One always brings back something--frost-bite, bruises, a bag of specimens that a.s.sayers and mineral development men smile at. They"re the palpable results, but in most cases you pick up an intangible something else."
"And that is?"