Chapter XXII: TOM

“It can’t be--I began.

“It must be!” Brent exclaimed, his voice quivering.

“Tom?” I asked, in a voice that sounded not like my own. Brent nodded.

“But how?” I couldn’t seem to grasp the meaning of it all. It seemed inconceivable for Tom to come to such an end. “Why, he’s too cautious to have made such a ghastly error!” I cried.

I couldn’t and I wouldn’t believe that _that_ was Tom!

“Who else would it be?” Brent’s broken tones sounded hopelessly positive, somehow. “He’s tried to find his way through here in the early dawn probably. He couldn’t have seen what a gap it was!”

“No, of course not!” I agreed, mechanically. “We must hurry back to camp. Get some help. The storm’s almost upon us.”

“Oh, yes! The storm. I had almost forgotten it,” Brent murmured, as though the storm and all else now meant nothing. “We’ll get some rope. He can’t lie there for long. He’s _dead_, of course!”

“_Of course!_”

* * * * *

We ran when we could and walked as fast as the thick brambles permitted. Where it was less thickly wooded, I could get a slight view of the camp through the trees. It looked like a speck of black on the horizon. We still had some distance to go.

The heavens were rumbling angrily and yet we had not sighted a place where we could find foothold enough to make a descent to the slope below us. Fully a half hour had passed and the rain was pelting us in huge drops before we found some jagged indentations running down to the first slope.

With hands and faces scratched and bleeding, our clothing torn and wet we finally reached the lower edge. Whether to follow along the base toward camp or strike out for the table-land was the question uppermost in our minds.

Which way would enable us to get there quickly? Brent took my arm in his and made a flourish with his free hand to the southeast.

“Isn’t that a sort of trail there?”

So it was, indeed! Though not much more of a trail than any we had just travelled. It was noticeable, however, that here and there the heavy grass lay tumbled on the earth as though some heavy object had flattened it.

“We can try it,” I said, “although it seems a long way ’round.”

“I know,” Brent said, “but it’s better to keep in the open. There’s a slight chance one of the boys might see us, there, where they wouldn’t be looking toward the mountain.

“I can signal every once in a while as we go along that we need help. Some one of them, especially Rivers, ought to be able to understand the code. It will save time if they spy us and we can turn right back.”

I shuddered to think of that ghastly sight in the dark ravine. And I shivered in my wet clothes when I thought of the fury of the storm. Even at that moment, it was converting the busy little brook into a frothing whirlpool, dashing unmercifully against that stark, helpless form.

I wouldn’t let my thoughts quell my hopes.

“We won’t give up hope, Brent! Perhaps, he’s there--at the Lodge.”

“Perhaps not,” Brent answered, gloomily.

The wet clinging grass of the foothills, though disagreeable and cold, was a welcome relief from our mountain experiences.

Dejected and despairing we hurried on, Brent stopping now and then to signal some hoped for, unseen observer. There was nothing in our hearts that we could find to say to one another that would better the situation or make it worse--if that could have been possible.

The howling of the wind through the mountains and down across the open country with its tall waving grass seemed to emphasize the dismal solitude. No living thing had crossed our path. Nothing but rain. It seemed eternal.

“There’s a clearing over to the right,” Brent called to me. I glanced casually.

From where we were walking I judged it to be a clearing about one hundred feet in circumference. When the wind blew the grass aside we noticed a slight eminence in the center of the bare looking ground that could not be mistaken for other than what it was. A small rough wooden cross was its marker.

We deliberately walked on. The sight brought to mind more forcibly the tragic puzzle in which our own lives had become involved.

“Now I know,” I said to Brent, “how Weston felt when he went to the Lodge to see if young McClintick was there. And here we’re doing the same thing.”

“We’re almost there,” Brent said, quietly. His voice betrayed a sort of fear that when we did get there, we’d find out the worst.

There wasn’t a sign of anyone about as we neared camp. The men were keeping indoors and out of the storm.

We were standing before the Lodge door!

It seemed as though we had been away from it for years. And no one to welcome us! Not a sound came from within.

Brent and I stared at the door. I felt panicky. The one waiting for the other to open the door and neither one moving.

For a second, I thought it was just an hallucination. But the door did really swing open slowly and a figure in khaki reached out and pulled us in as though we were two powerless puppets.

“For heaven’s sake!” the figure in khaki was exclaiming. “Where have you been? You both look as though you’ve stepped out of Poe! Say something!”

The moment must come to everyone, sometime, when extreme grief or gladness renders the human tongue speechless. That moment had come to Brent and I.

Some seconds passed before I heard a voice sounding very much like my own saying, “Tom!”