CHAPTER XXIV--THE BARRIER DOWN--FOR A MOMENT

"Hey, you fellers!" shouted Tolley to the several men in the barroom of the Grub Stake. "Come give me a hand. Here's a feller that's taken pretty near his last pill, I reckon."

The parson, as well as Hurley and the others, responded to the dive keeper's call. Tolley kicked shut the back door with savage insistence against the driving wind.

"I reckon his hoss is done for," he panted. "But the feller himself--Hi, Nobbs! get him a jolt of something hot."

Hunt and Joe Hurley helped raise the senseless man, and, with Tolley carrying the feet, they moved him close to one of the glowing stoves. His hat fell off. It was Joe who voiced a surprise that was not his alone.

"Why, Tolley! here's your dead man now. As I'm a sinner--and the parson assures me that I am--this is Dick Beckworth."

"Dick the Devil!" ejaculated two or three in chorus.

"This is a nice sort of a day for him to come back," muttered Tolley, evidently quite as much amazed as the others.

Hunt peered into the face of the senseless man. There was a certain regularity of feature, in spite of the sharpness and blueness caused by the extreme cold he had suffered, which the parson saw might lead the casual observer to consider Dick Beckworth handsome. His complexion was as spotless as a girl's; the skin scarcely tanned; ears and nose small and perfectly formed; the closed eyes, long-lashed; and the brows as delicately marked as though done with a stencil.

He was shaved, although he had come out of the wilderness, and his jet-black mustache was as silky as his long hair. Dick Beckworth, gambler and lady's man, without doubt made a striking appearance wherever he went. Even lying there on the bench, colorless, and with his eyes closed, the parson realized that the man would be indeed a "heart-breaker"--among young and inexperienced women at least.

It could not be doubted that he had made a strong impression upon the almost childish mind and heart of Nell Blossom. She must have been attracted by this man just as she would have been by a gaudy flower or a bird of brilliant plumage.

Hunt felt a strange loathing for the gambler, much as his present state should excite pity. This was the man, he believed, who had brought about the change that Joe Hurley said had suddenly come over Nell Blossom's character.

Beckworth had hidden the fact that he had escaped death through his fall into the canyon and so had laid a burden of terror and anguish upon Nell's heart, which was reason enough for her apparent hatred of all mankind.

Nobbs, the barkeeper, brought the drink at Tolley's command. They forced open Dick's jaws and poured the potent stuff into him. The color almost instantly stained his cheeks. His eyelids fluttered. He choked.

"What was it Andy McCann said about him?" Hurley said thoughtfully. "He's got the luck of a hanged man. He's coming around all right. But there are others out in the storm that need help more than this fellow."

"Who's that?" asked one of the men who had been loitering at the Grub Stake bar.

Hurley explained briefly about the absent girls. Two men besides those already of their party volunteered to join Hurley and the parson. A rope--a hair lariat--was likewise found with which the searchers could bind themselves together. It would be the simplest thing imaginable to drift away from each other in such a blinding storm.

Dick Beckworth gave unmistakable signs of returning consciousness. He groaned, struggled, raised up on an elbow to stare about.

"Hold on!" the parson said to Joe. "See if the man can speak. He may know something."

"Right you are, Willie," Hurley agreed. He leaned over the dazed gambler. "Hi, Dick! Do you know me? Joe Hurley! See?"

"Where--where am I?" whispered Dick.

"You're in the Grub Stake, all right, Dick," broke in Tolley eagerly. "The old Grub Stake, I tell ye--that you never ought t've left."

"Grub Stake? Tolley?" questioned Dick. Then he opened his eyes wide and recognized Hurley's face so close to his own. "That you, Joe? I----"

"Which way did you come into town, Dick?" broke in the mining man.

"Eh? What?"

"Did you come through the East Fork or the West Fork?"

"Why--why, the East Fork."

"You did! Did you see anybody on the way down? You came down the cliff, didn't you? Anybody up on the plain?" were Hurley's excited questions.

"Why--I--I----"

"Two women are out in the storm," went on Hurley. "Did you see them anywhere up yonder?"

"Two women? I--I thought they were men. They rode down ahead of me. Then it grew so--so thick I couldn't see 'em again."

"Great saltpeter!" exclaimed Hurley. "You must have passed 'em. They are up there somewhere among the rocks."

"Or they've gone over the rocks--hosses and all!" groaned Collins.

"Shut up!" muttered his chum, Cale Mack. "Ain't you got no sense? Look at the parson!"

"This is Parson Hunt," explained Hurley to the staring Dick. "His sister Betty is one of the missing girls you saw."

"_Who?_" gasped Dick. "Betty Hunt? Here? Here? At Canyon Pass?"

"My sister," Hunt said hoarsely. "Didn't you see her and Nell Blossom again as you rode down?"

"Your sister?" repeated the startled gambler. "Betty Hunt--your sister?"

He fell back and closed his eyes. Hurley started for the front door.

"No time to lose, boys," he cried. "Come on! Betty and Nell are somewhere up there along that path. No more delay."

He had already knotted one end of the rope around his waist. Hunt followed his example, leaving six feet or more of slack between them. The other men who were going with them quickly fastened themselves in rotation. They knotted neckerchiefs or mufflers across their faces. Nobbs opened the door for them, and the file went out into the storm.

The roar of the storm as the men came out upon the open bank of the East Fork made the human voice quite inaudible. Nor could they communicate by signs, for only the dim outlines of the man before him could be seen by the man behind. A tug of the rope was the only signal understood between the searchers.

The driven hail churned the surface of the river to a livid foam. The reflection of this sheet of ruffled water lent them more light than the sun itself. The storm beat upon the string of men with a savageness that appalled Hunt, who had never experienced nature in so bitter a mood.

But what these men of Canyon Pass could do, the parson would not shrink from. And were not the two beings he loved most in this world--Nell Blossom and his sister Betty--in desperate peril somewhere on the other side of the wind-lashed stream?

The water was all of knee-depth over the bar, but Joe waded in without hesitation. They were none of them shod properly for the wading of the stream; but their personal discomfort--or, indeed, their personal peril in any way--did not enter into their consideration in this emergency. Two girls were somewhere up there among the rocks, harassed by the storm and in danger of their lives. The men's job was to get them.

The ice--it was more than mere sleet that whipped them so unmercifully--cut such parts of their faces as were bare, needle sharp and stinging. From under the peak of his cap each man could now see scarcely a yard before him. They stumbled on as though they were in an unlighted cavern. Once Joe stepped off the track and plunged waist deep in a hole. Hunt hauled him back by the rope, and after a moment they went on again.

They reached the farther bank and stumbled up the sleet-covered strand, standing in a group together for a minute to get their breath and to ease the binding-rope about their bodies.

"I reckon I can smell out the path, boys," said their leader, so they started off again.

As they pressed upward, now and then they shouted--sometimes in unison. But their voices could not penetrate the gale far. The sounds were blown back into their faces as though rebounding from a blank wall.

At a point some distance up the path Hurley halted again and allowed the others to approach. He bawled at them:

"There's a place yonder somewhere under the cliff--I remember it--a half-shelter. They might have reached it."

"Don't get off the path, Joe!" warned Jib Collins.

"But if the girls got off the path?"

"We don't want to lose our way," objected Mack.

"I'm going to take a look!" ejaculated Hurley obstinately. But he could not untie the knot which held him. He fumbled at it. "Got a knife, Willie?"

The parson had already drawn out his pocket-knife. But he slashed the rope between Collins and himself.

"I'm going with you, Joe," he declared.

"Keep shoutin'!" bawled Collins, as the two younger men started off at a tangent from the path.

The bowlders were glassed with ice. The two friends floundered and slipped about in an awkward way, straining themselves enormously and not seldom falling. The one aided the other. It was fortunate, Hunt realized, that they had come together, for one man alone could never have accomplished the journey to the sheer wall of the cliff.

Of a sudden there seemed to be a lull in the gale. Really, they had reached a more sheltered spot. The storm sang around them, but they were not so terribly buffeted.

Joe shouted again:

"Nell! Nell Blossom! Betty!"

Hunt joined his voice to that of his friend. They continued to bellow the girls' names. Hurley grabbed the parson's arm suddenly.

"Hush!"

There was a response. A wailing voice replied.

"It's Betty! Your sister!" shouted Joe, and plunged forward, half-dragging the equally excited Hunt with him.

Something loomed up before the latter. He ran into the barrel of a standing horse!

"Here they are!" yelled Hurley.

Somehow, the two young men got around the horses. There was a sheltered place between the beasts and the wall of rock. Hunt heard his sister crying and laughing somewhere near. But it was not she whom he first found.

"Oh, Mr. Hunt! Oh, Mr. Hunt!" sobbed Nell Blossom's voice. "Are you real? You ain't another ghost, are you? Oh! Oh!"

Hunt's arms were around the girl, and he held her fast. Near by, he knew, Joe and Betty were talking--perhaps were whispering. His own lips were close to Nell's ear.

"My dear! My dear!" the parson said over and over again. "God is good to me! I've found you safe."

Nell snuggled into his arms like a frightened child and clung to him.