The Keeper | Page 8

of the long ravine
up which the thieves would come, but when they came up, he could be there waiting for
them. He knew what the old rifle could do, to an inch, and there were places where the
thieves would be coming up where he could stay out of blaster-range and pick them all
off, even with a single-loader.
He knew about negatron pistols, too. They shot little bullets of energy; they were very
fast, and did not drop, like a real bullet, so that no judgment of range was needed. But the
energy died quickly; the negatrons lived only long enough to go five hundred paces and
no more. At eight hundred, he could hit a man easily. He almost felt himself pitying Vahr
Farg's son and his companions.
When he reached the tumble of rocks that had been dragged along with and pushed out
from the Ice-Father, he stopped and made up a pack--sleeping robes, all his cartridges, as
much pemmican as he could carry, and the bag of trade-tokens. If the chase took him to
Long Valley Town, he would need money. He also coiled about his waist a long rawhide
climbing-rope, and left the sled-harness on Brave, simply detaching the traces.
At first, they walked easily on the sloping ice. Then, as it grew steeper, he fastened the
rope to the dog's harness and advanced a little at a time, dragging Brave up after him.
Soon he was forced to snub the rope with his ice-staff and chop steps with his hatchet.
Toward noon--at least he thought it was noon--it began snowing again, and the valley
below was blotted out in a swirl of white.
They came to a narrow ledge, where they could rest, with a wall of ice rising sheerly
above them. He would have to climb that alone, and then pull Brave up with the rope. He
started working his way up the perpendicular face, clinging by the pick of his ice-staff,
chopping footholds with the hatchet; the pack and the slung rifle on his back pulled at
him and threatened to drag him down. At length, he dragged himself over the edge and
drove the ice-staff in.
"Up, Brave!" he called, tugging on the rope. "Good dog, Brave; come up!"
Brave tried to jump and slipped back. He tried again, and this time Raud snubbed the
rope and held him. Below the dog pawed frantically, until he found a paw-hold on one of
the chopped-out steps. Raud hauled on the rope, and made another snub.
It seemed like hours. It probably was; his arms were aching, and he had lost all sense of
time, or of the cold, or the danger of the narrow ledge; he forgot about the Crown and the
men who had stolen it; he even forgot how he had come here, or that he had ever been
anywhere else. All that mattered was to get Brave up on the ledge beside him.
Finally Brave came up and got first his fore-paws and then his body over the edge. He lay
still, panting proudly, while Raud hugged him and told him, over and over, that he was a
good dog. They rested for a long time, and Raud got a slab of pemmican from the pack
and divided it with Brave.
It was while they rested in the snow, munching, that he heard the sound for the first time.

It was faint and far away, and it sounded like thunder, or like an avalanche beginning,
and that puzzled him, for this was not the time of year for either. As he listened, he heard
it again, and this time he recognized it--negatron pistols. It frightened him; he wondered
if the thieves had met a band of hunters. No; if they were fighting Northfolk, there would
be the reports of firearms, too. Or might they be fighting among themselves?
Remembering the melted brass studs on Bold's collar, he became more frightened at the
thought of what a negatron-blast could do to the Crown.
The noise stopped, then started again, and he got to his feet, calling to Brave. They were
on a wide ledge that slanted upward toward the north. It would take him closer to the top,
and closer to where Vahr and his companions would come up. Together, they started up,
Raud probing cautiously ahead of him with the ice-staff for hidden crevasses. After a
while, he came to a wide gap in the ice beside him, slanting toward the top, its upper end
lost in swirling snow. So he and Brave began climbing, and after a while he could no
longer hear the negatron pistols.
When it was almost too dark to go farther, he suddenly found himself on level snow, and
here he made camp, digging