Then he returned to the shaft.
Back into the black night, with the winds whistling through the pines.
Back to wandering about through the hills, hurrying forward at the sight of every faint, dark object against the snow, in the hope that Harry, crippled by the cave-in, might have some way gotten out of the shaft.

But they were only boulders or logs or stumps of trees.

At midnight, Fairchild turned once more toward town and to the boarding house.

But Harry had not appeared.

There was only one thing left to do.
This time, when Fairchild left Mother Howard's, his steps did not lead him toward Kentucky Gulch.