Had friendship no claims superior to personal
safety? Was not my decision prompted by sheer selfishness?
Could anything be said in its defence?
Yes; sentiment must yield to reason. To go on was certain
death for all. It was not too late to return, for those who
wished it. And when I had demonstrated, as I could easily
do, the impossibility of continuance, each one could decide
for himself. The men were as reckless as they were ignorant.
However they might execrate us, we were still their natural
leaders: their blame, indeed, implied they felt it. No
sentimental argument could obscure this truth, and this
conviction was decisive.
The next night and the day after were, from a moral point of
view, the most trying perhaps, of the whole journey. We had
halted on a wide, open plain. Due west of us in the far
distance rose the snowy peaks of the mountains. And the
prairie on that side terminated in bluffs, rising gradually
to higher spurs of the range. When the packs were thrown
off, and the men had turned, as usual, to help themselves to
supper, I drew Fred aside and imparted my resolution to him.
He listened to it calmly - much more so than I had expected.
Yet it was easy to see by his unusual seriousness that he
fully weighed the gravity of the purpose.
