Sprudell had not realized it before; but now he knew that always in the back of his head there had been a picture of an imposing cortège, blocks long, following a wreath-covered coffin in which he reposed. And later, an afternoon extra in which his demise was featured and his delicate, unostentatious charities described--not that he could think of any, but he presumed that that was the usual thing.
But this--this miserable finality! Unconsciously Sprudell groaned. To die bravely in the sight of a crowd was sublime; but to perish alone, unnoted, side by side with the Chinese cook and chiefly for want of trousers in which to escape, was ignominious. He snatched his cold feet from the middle of the cook's back.
Another wretched day passed, the event of which was the uncovering of Sprudell's fine field boots in a drift outside. That night he did not close his eyes. His nervousness became panic, and his panic like unto hysteria. He ached with cold and his cramped position, and he was now getting in earnest the gnawing pangs of hunger. What was a Chinaman's life compared to his? There were millions like him left--and there was only one Sprudell! In the faint, gray light of the fourth day, Griswold felt him crawling out.
Griswold watched him while he kneaded the hard leather of his boots to soften it, and listened to the chattering of his teeth while he went through the Chinaman's war bag for an extra pair of socks.
"The sizes in them Levi Strauss' allus run too small," Uncle Bill observed suddenly, after Sprudell had squeezed into Toy's one pair of overalls.
"There's no sense in us all staying here to starve," said Sprudell defiantly, as though he had been accused. "I'm going to Ore City before I get too weak to start."
"I won't stop you if you're set on goin'; but, as I told you once, you'll be lost in fifteen yards. There's just one chance I see, Sprudell, and I'll take it if you'll say you'll stay with Toy. I'll try to get down to that cabin on the river. The feller may be there, and again he may have gone for grub. I won't say that I can make it, but I'll do my best."
Sprudell said stubbornly: "I won't be left behind! It's every man for himself now."
The old man replied, with equal obstinacy: "Then you'll start alone." He added grimly: "I reckon you've never wallered snow neck deep."
For the first time the Chinaman stirred, and raising himself painfully to his elbow, turned to Uncle Bill.
"You go, I think."