At this point they parted, Jeff and Gaspe Toujours remaining, and Hume
and his two followers going on towards Manitou Mountain. There seemed
little probability that Clive Lepage would be found. In their progress
eastward and northward they had covered wide areas of country, dividing
and meeting again after stated hours of travel, but not a sign had been
seen; neither cairn nor staff nor any mark of human presence.

Hume had noticed Jeff Hyde's face when it was turned to the eddying
drifts of the north, and he understood what was in the experienced
huntsman's mind. He knew that severe weather was before them, and that
the greatest danger of the journey was to be encountered.

That night they saw Manitou Mountain, cold, colossal, harshly calm; and
jointly with that sight there arose a shrieking, biting, fearful north
wind. It blew upon them in cruel menace of conquest, in piercing
inclemency. It struck a freezing terror to their hearts, and grew in
violent attack until, as if repenting that it had foregone its power to
save, the sun suddenly grew red and angry, and spread out a shield of
blood along the bastions of the west. The wind shrank back and grew less
murderous, and ere the last red arrow shot up behind the lonely western
wall of white, the three knew that the worst of the storm had passed and
that death had drawn back for a time. What Hume thought may be gathered
from his diary; for ere he crawled in among the dogs and stretched
himself out beside Bouche, he wrote these words with aching fingers:

January 10th: Camp 39.--A bitter day. We are facing three fears
now: the fate of those we left behind; Lepage's fate; and the going
back. We are twenty miles from Manitou Mountain. If he is found,
I should not fear the return journey; success gives hope. But we
trust in God.