It was getting late, but Coulthurst went straightway; and as the result of it Esmond and two troopers set out with a hand-sled early next morning for a certain peak that overhung a gorge through the barrier-range that cut off the Westerhouse country. He could not pass up the valley, but that was no great matter since the peak could be seen leagues away. It was a long journey, and he had intended going no farther than the gorge with the troopers, but he was not destined to get even there.
On the second day they came on a tree lying across their path with its branches interlocked among the shattered limbs of a neighbor so that the great trunk was sharply tilted, an obstacle which is frequently to be met with in that country. As the undergrowth all round was tall and thick, Esmond and one trooper swung themselves upon the log to see if they could find an opening, and made their way along it until they came to a branch where the trunk was high above the ground. The trooper crept round it, and then, as Esmond came after him, there was a crash and a shout, and the trooper who had stayed below saw his officer vanish amidst the rattling twigs. It was several minutes before they could reach him, and then he was lying, with a grey face, and with one leg changed in its usual contour and significantly limp. He looked up with a grin of pain when the first trooper bent over him.
"Gone at the thigh-bone. I felt it snap," he said. "Simpkin will get me home on the sled, but you'll go on, Grieve, and tell Captain Slavin how we are fixed. He will come in with every man available."
"I guess I'd better see you safe back, sir," said the trooper.
Esmond stared at him fiercely, though his face was awry with pain.
Then he winced, and, moving a little, fell over with his face in the snow, and, because the boughs he had fallen among were thick, it was two hours before the troopers got him out and on the sled. It was not altogether astonishing that they managed to compound the fracture during the operation. After that Grieve pushed on alone, and he was, as it happened, from the wild bush of Northern Ontario, which, though the trees and rocks are smaller, is a very similar country. In the meanwhile Simpkin headed back for the valley with the sled, and it was not his fault that three nights of bitter frost overtook him on the way. Indeed, if he had not been an exceptionally resolute man, inured to fatigue, it is very probable that Esmond would have frozen before they reached the outpost. On the morning after they got there a trooper appeared before the miners' barricade without his carbine and hailed the men on guard.