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Once you told me that you couldn't keep step with me. It's true. You can't. It was a daft dream." He took a deep breath, seemed to shake himself out of it, and smiled cheerfully upon her. "We'll put our treasure-trove on the sled and go back to your friends," he continued briskly. "To-morrow I'll send men up to scour the hills for Northrup's body."
Also, with memories lively in me of the home circle in Elkton, I prayed to God. In the morning we took stock. To commence with, all but two or three had suffered frost-bite. Aaron Northrup, unable to move because of his broken hip, was very bad. It was the surgeon's opinion that both of Northrup's feet were hopelessly frozen.
They sent up from Mr. Northrup's office this morning for some documents or deeds or something which they thought Mr. Chester might have in his pockets. The nurse brought out his clothes so that Mrs. Tiffany and I might go through them I felt like a pickpocket. And we came across a package of proofs photographs of him. We opened it to see if the old deeds might be in there.
Great was Miss Northrup's consternation the next morning when she learned through a little note left for her that Captain Frazier had taken his departure from the Crossmon Hotel the preceding night. A sigh of relief fell from her red lips. "Perhaps it is better so," she said. A messenger who brought a great basket of orchids and white roses, entered.
Ever the spray froze in the bottom of the boat, and I still chipped beer and drinking water with Northrup's knife. My own knife I reserved. It was of good steel, with a keen edge and stoutly fashioned, and I did not care to peril it in such manner. By the time half our company was overboard, the boat had a reasonably high freeboard and was less ticklish to handle in the gusts.
Thus three days passed, and not even the slightest trace of Jessie Bain could be discovered, and Hubert was beside himself with grief. In the midst of his trouble a strange event happened. As he was passing through the lobby of the hotel one evening, he met Harry Maillard, Gerelda Northrup's cousin.
We found him in the gray of dawn crouched doubled in the bow and frozen stiff. The boy, Lish Dickery, was the second to go. The other boy, Benny Hardwater, lasted ten or a dozen days. So bitter was it in the boat that our water and beer froze solid, and it was a difficult task justly to apportion the pieces I broke off with Northrup's claspknife.
"Like Northrup's," broke in Mrs. Tiffany. That name always jarred on their ears. Northrup, ex-congressman, flowery Western orator, all Christian love on the surface, all guile beneath he had taken to himself that success which Judge Tiffany might have had but for his hesitations of conscience. Theirs was a secret resentment.
With the assistance of the local authorities Northrup's identity was promptly established, his liberty procured, and the journey accomplished which carried him back again to his wife and children at Saratoga. Though the books of this class are generally of dubious value this one has a tone which engages confidence.
Bertram Chester had left him almost without notice. But that was to be expected. The rest was the worst. Bertram had gone to Senator Northrup as manager of his real estate interests. The name Northrup was as the name of the devil in that household. Northrup's operations included not only law and politics but latterly speculative and unprincipled ventures in business.
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