Frank knew it was possible that there might be men in this wilderness who weren’t friendly. The smoke could attract danger. But it was a risk he was willing to run if it meant there was a better chance of reuniting with other survivors from the Montclair.
The fog had thinned out, so they were able to look back and see the fire for quite a distance as they followed the curve of the beach. Then they came to an area where jagged rocks thrust up out of the sand, and they had to work their way through them before they came to another open stretch.
As they stepped out onto the sand, Frank caught a glimpse of movement at the edge of the trees. The sky was still overcast, but enough sunlight filtered through the clouds to show him a golden gleam in the shadows. He stopped in his tracks, his heart pounding. He thought he recognized that sleek, shining hide.
“What is it, Frank?” Conway asked.
Instead of answering, Frank lifted his fingers to his mouth and used them to help him let out a shrill, piercing whistle. In response, Goldy burst out of the trees, followed by the rangy gray stallion called Stormy. Both horses tossed their heads in the air and then galloped along the sand toward Frank and Conway.
Frank ran to meet them, throwing his arms around Stormy’s neck and then Goldy’s. He had known there was a chance the horses would be able to swim to shore, but he hadn’t really expected that hope to come true.
“Son of a gun,” Conway said in an awed voice. “They made it.”
“They sure did,” Frank said. “That means some of the others could have, too.”
“Do we ride now?”
Frank shook his head. “We’ll keep walking for the time being. These fellas have been through hell, just like we have. They can use some rest.”
Leading the horses, Frank and Conway continued down the beach. After another half hour or so, Frank stopped again and listened intently.
“Hear that?” he asked as a smile tugged at the grim lines of his mouth. “That’s barking.”
Sure enough, it was. Stormy and Goldy heard it, too, and broke loose, tugging their reins out of the hands of Frank and Conway. The horses trotted down the beach with the two men following.
A few moments later, Dog came into sight, bounding along the sand. Frank saw human figures struggling along behind the big cur. Dog reached Stormy and Goldy and capered around them in sheer joy for a few seconds before launching himself at Frank with a madly wagging tail and an eagerly licking tongue. Frank wrestled happily with Dog for a moment, then looked along the beach and felt his spirits lifting as he recognized Fiona Devereaux, Meg Goodwin, Jessica Harpe, and the cheechako from New York named Neville. They were all pale and drawn from their ordeal, and their clothes were still wet, but they were grinning at the sight of Frank and Conway.
Fiona threw her arms around Frank, and Jessica did likewise with Conway. “We thought you were dead, we thought you were dead,” Fiona babbled. “We saw you fall off the ship into the water, Frank. My God, how did you survive?”
“You just explained it,” Frank said. “El Señor Dios was watching over me, and Pete there gave Him a hand.” He looked at the others. “How many of you made it?”
“All of us except…except Constance and Gertrude,” Fiona said in a grief-wracked voice. “They…they fell out of the lifeboat while it was being tossed around so madly. We never saw them again.”
Frank nodded. He and Conway had survived going into the water, but he held out no hope that the two young women had. They wouldn’t have been strong enough to stay afloat and fight off the cold.
“Mr. Neville and three of his friends were in the boat as well,” Fiona went on. “They made it, too, and we have the supplies we were carrying.”
“Pete and I managed to salvage some supplies, too,” Frank said, “including the guns. Seen anybody else from the ship?”
Fiona shook her head. “No. No one.”
Frank figured that Captain Hoffman and most of the crew had still been on the Montclair when it broke up. He doubted if any of them had survived.
Neville said, “We saw that dog of yours swimming for it and pulled him on board the lifeboat with us, Morgan.”
Frank kept his left arm around Fiona’s shoulders and held out his right hand to the little cheechako. “Then I owe you a big debt, amigo,” he said. “Dog and I have been through a lot together. I’d have hated to lose him.”
Neville gripped Frank’s hand. “Glad we could help. I see your horses made it, too. What now?”
Frank felt Fiona trembling against him. “Now we need to get all of you back up the beach to the camp Pete and I made. We have a fire burning there. You can thaw out and dry your clothes.”
Through chattering teeth, Fiona said, “Th-that sounds w-wonderful.”
“Pete, show them the way. I’ll gather up the rest of the party.”
Conway led the women and Neville back up the beach. Frank sent Stormy and Goldy with the group, but kept Dog with him. He hurried along the sand, calling out the names of the other women. They emerged from the trees, along with the three other gold-hunters. The young women had to hug Frank, and the men had to shake his hand.
“Grab all the supplies you have and let’s go,” Frank told them. “By nightfall you should all be warm and dry and have some hot food in your bellies.”
They all exclaimed with joy at hearing that.
It took an hour to herd everyone up the beach to the camp. Conway had started feeding branches and pine needles into the fire as soon as he and his companions got there, so by the time Frank and the others arrived, the blaze was roaring again, throwing off waves of welcome heat. Everyone gathered around it.
Frank studied the survivors as they basked in the warmth. There were seventeen of them in all, counting him. The Montclair had carried between forty and fifty passengers and had a crew of more than twenty men. That meant there had been about seventy souls on board. At least fifty of them had died in the wreck. It was a sobering thought.
But no more sobering than the fact that the ones who had survived were still in great danger, despite the incredible good fortune that had brought them this far. They had supplies, guns, and ammunition, but they were a long way from any outposts of civilization, faced with an overland trek through some of the most hostile country in the world. And if another storm blew up, they would be in even worse shape.
Frank knew all that…but he had to smile anyway. They had a fighting chance.
That was all he had ever asked for in life.
Chapter 15
The next morning brought a grim discovery. Frank became aware of it when he heard one of the young women screaming. He was hunkered by the fire, cooking more of the salt pork. He handed the stick to a startled Fiona and stood quickly, reaching for the Winchester on the sand beside him.
“I’ll go see what’s wrong,” he said. “Pete, come with me. Neville, you and the other boys stay here and keep an eye on things.”
The cheechakos were all armed with pistols now, as were Fiona, Meg, and several other of the women. That was one of the first things Frank had seen to the day before.
With no blankets, they had all been forced to huddle together, close to the fire, during the night; otherwise some of them might have frozen to death as the temperature plummeted. This morning, the women had wanted some privacy to tend to their needs, so Frank had been letting them go down the beach to the rocks. That was where the screams were coming from now.
He had been sending the women to the rocks two at a time, and one of them had to have a pistol and keep watch while the other took care of her business. Lucy Calvert and Maureen Kincaid were down there now, he recalled.
“What do you reckon’s wrong?” Conway asked as they trotted along the beach.
“I don’t know,” Frank said, “but at least there hasn’t been any shooting so far.”