“One thing is sure,” Johnny said as he prepared for rest. “There is no need for maintaining a watch to-night.”
He was destined to have another thought regarding this next morning. Beside the pile of goat’s meat they had left carelessly on a rock, he saw a single footprint. The goatskin and a portion of the meat was gone.
“Did us no harm,” he told Faye as he pointed in astonishment at the footprint. “We still have more meat than we can carry. And the skin was worth nothing to us.”
“But that creature!” she said with a shudder. “Look! The footprint is twice the length of a man’s.”
“Tell you what!” There was an air of mystery in his tone. “Remember that creature that defied the wolves that night?”
Here indeed was a mystery. But graver matters called for their attention. In spite of all they could do they had come near perishing with cold. They must be off the mountain before the end of the day, or tragedy was sure to overtake them.
CHAPTER XV ON THE TRAIL OF THE GREAT BANSHEE
Mid-afternoon of that day found them at the crest of the mountain, caught in the grip of such a storm as one dreams of but seldom meets in real life.
A sixty-mile gale drove particles of snow fine as white sand and cutting as steel into their burning cheeks. When they attempted to go forward it was as if they were leaping against a fine meshed but unbreakable net. They could but drop on hands and knees and crawl. When they went with the wind they were appalled by the push and drive of it and by the sweeping whirls of snow that leaping fifty, a hundred feet in air, appeared nearly to reach to the very sky.
“Now,” said the girl in a half sob, “I know why these mountains appear to smoke.”
“If only we could find a way down,” said Johnny as he lent an arm to Gordon Duncan, who was struggling against the wind.
Of a sudden a burst of wind more terrible than ever seized the girl and sent her whirling down the white slope toward the unknown abyss beyond.
In the nick of time Johnny grasped the belt of her mackinaw. Throwing himself flat behind a low rock, he clung there like grim despair until the wind lost its power and the girl was drawn back to safety.
“You—you remember,” the girl panted, “we were going to try to slide down on the o—other side. I nearly did.”