The only thing I
find it uncommonly difficult to explain is--that--damned odor."
"It made me feel sick, I assure you," declared his nephew, "positively
dizzy!" His uncle's attitude of calm omniscience, merely because he knew
more psychological formulae, made him slightly defiant. It was so easy
to be wise in the explanation of an experience one has not personally
witnessed. "A kind of desolate and terrible odor is the only way I can
describe it," he concluded, glancing at the features of the quiet,
unemotional man beside him.
"I can only marvel," was the reply, "that under the circumstances it did
not seem to you even worse." The dry words, Simpson knew, hovered
between the truth, and his uncle's interpretation of "the truth."
* * * * *
And so at last they came to the little camp and found the tent still
standing, the remains of the fire, and the piece of paper pinned to a
stake beside it--untouched. The cache, poorly contrived by inexperienced
hands, however, had been discovered and opened--by musk rats, mink and
squirrel. The matches lay scattered about the opening, but the food had
been taken to the last crumb.
"Well, fellers, he ain't here," exclaimed Hank loudly after his fashion.
"And that's as sartain as the coal supply down below! But whar he's got
to by this time is 'bout as unsartain as the trade in crowns in t'other
place.
Pages:
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63