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Pierre Radisson lay on his balsam bed, with nothing over him now but the gray sky and the spruce-tops. Kazan stood stiff-legged and sniffed the air. His spine bristled when Joan went back slowly and kneeled beside the blanket-wrapped object. When she returned to him her face was white and tense, and now there was a strange and terrible look in her eyes as she stared out across the barren.
When Kirby did not answer, Drew's head lifted. He put down his cup and caught the Texan's arm. "He made it out of town; I know that. But where is he?" "Ovah theah." Kirby nodded at the blanket-wrapped figure in the shadows. "Seems like he ain't feelin' too well...." Drew wasted no time in getting to his feet.
And then, when, finally, the first and second lined up for a twenty-minute scrimmage, he saw the coveted place again filled by the substitute half-back and found himself sitting, blanket-wrapped, on the bench! Tracey Black, catching his eye between periods, smiled sympathetically.
To me, reared as I had been in the flat country of central Indiana, where mountains and the sea were wonders known only through books, the journey across the continent with its glimpses of the mighty snow-capped crags of the Rockies outlined against the fiery sunset skies of that region, the weird castellated rocks of the "Bad Lands," the colonies of funny little prairie-dogs peeping out of their burrows, the blanket-wrapped Indians waiting at the stations, and finally the awesome vision of the stupendous canyons and precipices of the Sierras, was like some strange, impossible dream; and when at last we came out into the warm sun and flowery brightness of California, straight from the gloom and chill of an Indiana November, it was as though the gates of paradise had suddenly opened.
On the sledge behind him lay an inanimate and blanket-wrapped bundle, which was Dobson; and close at the rear of the sledge, stripped of his greatcoat and more than ever like a diminutive drum-major, followed Dudley McGill, professor of neurology and diseases of the brain, with a bulldog revolver in his mittened hand. From the door Falkner watched them go.
A half-hour later, white-featured, his arms cupped gently about a blanket-wrapped form, he stepped forth into the storm, and bending against the wind, turned toward the railroad in obedience to the hazy directions of the sobbing woman he had left behind. The snowfall was lighter now; he could find his way more easily.
The blanket-wrapped shape was as unconscious as a child in its cradle, and though the wilderness may breed hardness of purpose it need not teach butchery. I crept out determined to scuttle the Indian's canoe and go away. If the man waked, my knife was ready to try conclusions with him in a fair field.
A moment of silence followed the command, and then came the sounds of a heavy footfall upon the veranda. The Louchoux girl sprang to the door, and as she wrenched it open the yellow lamplight threw into bold relief the huge figure of a man, who, bearing a blanket-wrapped form in his arms, staggered into the room, and, without a word deposited his burden upon the floor.
Then I could hear Cavor puffing and grunting, and the snapping of a shutter in its sash. I made an effort, thrust back our blanket-wrapped luggage, and emerged from beneath it. Our open windows were just visible as a deeper black set with stars. We were still alive, and we were lying in the darkness of the shadow of the wall of the great crater into which we had fallen.
He was glad that Ralph was dead. Suddenly, as he stood looking down upon the still form, a harsh laugh broke from him and echoed through the stillness of the room. He moved away and replenished the stove; and then, returning, he wrapped his brother in the blankets on which he lay. Moving the blanket-wrapped body aside, he exposed the floor where the treasure had been buried.
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