with his mother, I suppose, and try to keep her. I'm nobody, and I'll
take all risks and go.'
"`Yes, one fool's enough, sir,' he said, `for a job like that. But I
don't believe there is any gold there.'
"`Oh, yes, there is, sir,' I said.
"`What does Dallas say?'
"`Nothing. He doesn't know, and he will not know till aunt gets my
letter, and she tells him.'
"`As if the poor old woman hadn't enough to suffer without you going
off, sir,' he said.
"`But I can't stop and live upon her now, uncle.'
"`Of course you can't, sir. But what about the soldiering, and the
scarlet and gold lace?'
"`Good-bye to it all, sir,' I said with a gulp, for it was an awful
knockdown to a coxcomb of a chap like I was, who had reckoned on the
fine feathers and spurs and the rest of it.
"`Humph!' he grunted, `and you think I am going to give--lend you a
hundred pounds to go on such a wild goose chase?'
"`I hope so, uncle,' I said.
"`Hope away, then; and fill yourself with the unsatisfactory stuff, if
you like. No, sir; if you want to go gold-digging, shoulder your swag
and shovel, pick and cradle, and tramp there.'
"`How?' I said, getting riled, for the old nut seemed harder than ever.
`I can't tramp across three thousand miles of ocean. I could hardly
tramp over three thousand miles of land, and when I did reach the
Pacific, if I could, there's the long sea journey from Vancouver up to
Alaska, and another tramp there. No, uncle,' I said, `it isn't to be
done. I've gone into it all carefully, and cut it as fine as I might,
it will take fifty pounds for outfit and carriage to get to Klondike.'
"`Fifty! Why, you said a hundred,' he growled. `That's coming down.
Want the other fifty to play billiards and poker?'
"`No, I don't,' I said, speaking as sharply as he did; `I want that
fifty pounds to leave with poor old aunt. I can't and won't go and
leave her penniless.'"
"Ah!" sighed the listener--almost groaned.
"Well, wouldn't you have done the same?"
"Yes, yes. Go on--go on."
"There isn't much more to tell. I'm pretty close to the end. What do
you think the old boy said?"
"I know--I know," came back in a whisper.
"That you don't," cried the narrator, who, in spite of their horrible
position, burst out into a ringing laugh. "He just said `Bah!' and came
at me as if he were going to bundle me out of the door, for he clapped
his hands on my shoulders and shook me fiercely. Then he banged me down
into a chair, and went to one of those old, round-fronted secretary
desks, rolled up the top with a rush, took a cheque-book out of a little
drawer, dashed off a cheque, signed and blotted it, and thrust it into
my hand.
"`There, it's open,' he said. `You can get it cashed at the bank, and
send your aunt the fifty as soon as you're gone. Be off at once, and
don't say a word to a soul. Here; give me back that cheque.'
"I gave it back to him.
"`Now, swear you won't tell a soul I lent you that money, nor that you
are going off!'
"`I give you my word of honour, uncle.'
"`That'll do,' he said. `Catch hold, and be off. It's a loan, mind.
You bring back a couple of sacks full of nuggets, and pay me again.'
"`I will, uncle,' I said, `if I live.'
"`If you live!' he said, staring at me. `Of course you'll live. I'm
seventy, and not near done. You're not a score. Be off.'
"And I came away and never said a word."
"But you sent the fifty pounds to your poor old aunt?"
"Why, of course I did; but I shall never pay old `Hard Nut with the
Sweet Kernel' his money back. God bless him, though, and I hope he'll
know the reason why before he dies."
"God bless him! yes," said the listener, in a deep, low voice that
sounded very strange, and as if the speaker could hardly trust himself
to speak.
Then they lay together in the darkness and silence for a time, till Abel
Wray made an effort and said in his harsh, husky voice:
"There, that's all. Makes a fellow feel soft. Think it's midnight
yet?"
"No, no," was whispered.
"I'll strike a match and see."
"No. We want every mouthful of air to breathe, or I should have struck
one long ago."
"Of course. I never thought of it once. Sleepy?"
"No."
"Then fair play. Tell me your story now."
"There is no need. But tell me this; am I awake? Have you told me all
this, or have I dreamed it?"
"I've told you it all, of course."
"Am I sane, or wandering in my head? It can't be true. I must be mad."
"Then I am, too. Bah! as Uncle Morgan said. Come, play fair; tell me
how you came here?"
"The same way as you did, and to get gold."
"Well, so I supposed. There, just as you like. I will not press you to
tell me."
"I tell you there is no need. For your story is mine. We thought as
brothers with one brain; we made the same plan; we travelled with the
same means; we supplied the dear old aunt and mother from the same
true-hearted source. Bel, old lad, don't you know me? It is I, Dal,
and we meet like this!"
"Great heaven!" gasped Abel, in his low, husky whisper. "It has turned
his brain. Impossible! Yes, that is it; the air is turning hot and
strange at last, and this has driven me mad. It is all a wandering
dream."
CHAPTER SEVEN.
FEVERED DREAMS.
"It is _no_ wandering dream, Bel. I tell you I seem to have been
inspired to do exactly the same as you did, and I went to Uncle Morgan,
who treated me just as he treated you."
"Yes, a dream--off my head," said Abel Wray, in his harsh whisper.
"No, no, old fellow," cried Dallas; "it is all true. Uncle was never so
strange to me before. It was because you had been to him first. It is
wonderful. Your voice is so changed I did not know it, and in the
darkness I never saw your face."
"Yes--delirious," croaked Abel. "They say it is so before death."
"Nonsense, nonsense, lad! I came back just in time to save you, and now
we have been saved, too, from a horrible death. After a bit we shall be
stronger, and shall be able to see which way to begin tunnelling our way
out to life again. Cheer up; we have got through the worst, and as soon
as we are free we'll join hands and work together, so that we can show
them at home that we have not come out in vain. How are you now?"
A low rumbling utterance was the reply, and Dallas leaned towards him,
feeling startled.
"Don't you hear me?" he cried. "Why don't you answer?"
"Dear old Dal--to begin dreaming of him now," came in a low muttering.
"No, no; I tell you that it is all true."
"All right, uncle," croaked Abel. "Not an hour longer than it takes to
scrape together enough. Ha, ha, ha! and I thought you so hard and
brutal to me. Eh? But you're not. It was a dreadful take in. I say!"
"Yes, yes, old fellow. What?"
"Don't say a word to dear old Dal. Let him stop and take care of aunt,
and let them think I've shuffled out of the trouble. I'll show them
when I come back."
"Bel, old fellow," cried Dallas, seizing his cousin's hand, "what is it?
Don't talk in that wild way."
"That's right, uncle," croaked Abel. "We two used to laugh about you
and call you the Hard Nut. So you are; but there's the sweet white
kernel inside, and I swear I'll never lie down to sleep again without
saying a word first for you. I say, one word," cried the poor fellow,
grasping his cousin's hand hard: "you'll do something for old Dal,
uncle? I'll pay you again. I don't want to see him roughing it as I
shall out there for the gold--yes, for the gold--the rich red gold. Ah,
that's cool and nice."
For in his horror and alarm Dallas had laid a hand upon his cousin's
temples, to find them burning: but the poor fellow yielded to the gentle
pressure, and slowly subsided on to the rough couch they had made, and
there he lay muttering for a time, but starting at intervals to cough,
as if his injured throat troubled him with a choking sensation, till his
ravings grew less frequent, and he sank into a deep sleep.
"This is worse than all!" groaned Dallas. "Had I not enough to bear?
His head is as if it were on fire. Fever--fever from his injury and the
shock of all he has gone through. I thought he was talking wildly
towards the last."
As he spoke he was conscious of a sharp throbbing pang in his shoulder,
and he laid a hand upon the place that he had forgotten; while now he
woke to the fact that when he tried to think what it would be best to do
for his cousin, the effort was painful, and the sensation came back that
all this must be a feverish dream.
He clapped his hands to his face. It and his brow were burning hot, and
he knew that he was growing confused; so much so that he rose to his
knees, then to his feet, and took a step or two, to stand wondering, for
his senses left him for a moment or two, and then a strange thing befell
him. A black veil seemed to have fallen in front of his eyes, and he
was lost, utterly lost, and he had not the least idea where he was or
what had been taking place during the past twenty-four hours.
He stretched out his hands and touched the compressed snow, which was
dripping with moisture; but that gave him no clue, for his mind seemed
to be a perfect blank, and with a horrible feeling of despair he leaned
forward to try and escape from the black darkness, when his burning brow
came in contact with the icy wall of his prison, and it was like an
electric shock.
His position came back in a flash. Self was forgotten, and he sank upon
his knees to feel for his cousin, horror-stricken now by the great dread
that the poor fellow might die with him by his side quite unable to
help.
He forgot that but a short time back he was advocating a brave meeting
of their fate. For since he had awakened to the fact that his boyhood's
companion was with him, hope had arisen, and with it the determination
to wait patiently till morning and then fight their way back to the
light. Now all seemed over. Abel was terribly injured, fever had
supervened, and he would die for want of help; while he, who would
freely have given his life that Abel might live, was utterly helpless,
and there was that terrible sensation of being lost coming on again.
He pressed his head against the snow, but there was no invigorating
sense of revival again--nothing but a curious, worrying feeling. Then
he was conscious for a few moments that Abel was muttering loudly, but
the injury to his shoulder was graver than he had imagined, and the
feverish symptoms which follow a wound were increasing, so that before
long he too had sunk into a nightmare-like sleep, conscious of nothing
but the strange, bewildering images which haunted his distempered brain;
and these were divided between his vain efforts to flee from some
terrible danger, and to drag the heavily laden hand-sledge between two
ice-covered rocks too close together to allow it to pass.
CHAPTER EIGHT.
THE FIGHT FOR LIFE.
"Yes! Yes! What is it?" Somebody had spoken in the black darkness,
but it was some minutes before Dallas Adams could realise the fact that
the words came from his own lips.
Then he heard a faint whisper from somewhere close by, and he was this
time wide awake, and knew that he was answering that whisper.
"Where am I? What place is this?"
The question had come to him in his sleep, and for a few moments, so
familiar were the sounds, he felt that he must have the tubes of a
phonograph to his ears, and he listening to the thin, weird, wiry tones
of his cousin's voice.
Then, like a flash, all came back, and he knew not only that he had been
asleep, but everything that had happened some time before.
"Bel, old lad," he said huskily, and he winced with pain as he tried to
stretch out his left hand.
"Ah!" came again in the faint whisper, "That you, Dal?"
"Yes, yes. How are you now?"
"Then it isn't all a delirious dream?"
"No, no; we have been brought together almost miraculously."
"Thank God--thank God!" came feebly. "I thought I had been off my head.
Have I been asleep?"
"Yes, and I fell asleep too. My wound made me feverish, and we must
have been lying here ever so long in the dark."
"Your wound, Dal?"
"Yes; I had almost forgotten it in what we had to go through, but one of
the scoundrels shot me. It is only a scratch, but my arm seems set
fast."
"Ah! Do you think they were buried alive too?" came in an eager
whisper.
"Who can say, old fellow? But never mind that. How do you feel? Think
you can help me?"
"Tie up your wound?"
"No, no. Help me try and dig our way out."
"I think so. My head feels a bit light, but it's my throat that is
bad--all swollen up so that I can only whisper."
"Never mind your throat so long as you can use your arms."
"Think we can dig our way out?"
Dallas uttered a little laugh.
"Why not?" he said. "There is a pick and shovel on my sledge."
"Ah, yes, and on mine too."
"We were out of heart last night," continued Dallas, encouragingly, "and
in the scare thought we were done for. But we can breathe; we shall not
suffer for want of food; the melted snow will give us drink; and once we
can determine which way to dig, what is to prevent our finding our way
to daylight again?"
"Our position," said Abel, in his faint whisper. "Where are we to put
the snow we dig out?"
Dallas was silent for a few moments.
"Yes," he said at last; "that will be a difficulty, for we must not fill
up this place. But never mind that for the present. We must eat and
drink now, for we shall want all our strength. Pressed snow is almost
like ice. Ah, here is the sledge--mine or yours. My head is too thick
to tell which. Bel, lad, we are going to dig our way out, if it takes
us a month."
"Yes," came rather more strongly; and the next minute Dallas Adams was
feeling about the sledge for the tin which held the traveller's food.
It was hard work fumbling there in the dark, for parts of the sledge
were pressed and wedged down by snow that was nearly as hard as ice; but
others were looser, and by degrees he managed to get part of the tin
free, when he started, for something touched his arm.
"Can I help you, Dal?"
"How you made me jump, lad! I don't know. Feel strong enough?"
"I think so; but I want to work. It's horrible lying there fancying the
top of this hole is going to crumble down every time you move some of
the snow."
"Lay hold here, then, and let's try and drag this tin out."
They took hold of it as well as their cramped position would allow, and
tugged and tugged, feeling the tin case bend and grow more and more out
of shape; but it would not come.
"No good," said Dallas. "I'll cut through the tin with my knife."
"But it's looser now. Let's have one more try."
"Very well.--Got hold?--Now then, both together."
They gave a sudden jerk, and fell backward with the once square tin case
upon them, lying still and horrified, for there was a dull creaking and
crushing noise as if the snow was being pressed down to fill up the
vacancy they had made, and then _crick, crack_, sharply; there was the
sound of breaking, as portions of the sledge gave way from the weight
above.
Abel caught his cousin's hand to squeeze it hard, fully expecting that
their last moments had come; but after a minute's agony the sounds
ceased, and the prisoners breathed more freely.
"It's all right, Bel," said Dallas; "but it did sound rather creepy."
"Hah!" ejaculated Abel. "I thought--"
"Yes, so did I, old fellow; but it's a mistake to think at a time like
this. We only frighten ourselves. Now then, let's see what we've got."
"See?" said Abel bitterly.
"Yes, with the tips of our fingers. It's all right, I tell you; rats
and mice and rabbits don't make a fuss about being in burrows."
"They're used to it, Dal; we're not."
"Then let's get used to it, lad. I say, suppose we were getting gold
here, instead of a biscuit-tin; we shouldn't make a fuss about being
buried. Why, it's just what we should like."
"I suppose so," replied Abel.
"It's what we shall have to do, perhaps, by-and-by. This is a sort of
lesson, and it will make the rest easy."
"If we get out."
"Get out? Pish! We shall get out soon. The sun and the rain will thaw
us out if we don't dig a way. Hullo! The lid's off the tin, and the
biscuits are half of them in the snow. Never mind. Set to work and
eat, while I pick up all I can find. I'm hungry. Peck away, lad, and
think you're a squirrel eating your winter store. I say, who would
think one could be so warm and snug surrounded by snow?"
Abel made no reply, but tried to eat, as he heard the cracking and
crunching going on at his side. It was hard work, though, and he went
on slowly, for the effort to swallow was accompanied by a good deal of
pain, and he ceased long before Dallas gave up.
"How are you getting on?" the latter said in an encouraging tone.
"Badly."
"Yes, they are dry; but wait till we get our gold. We'll have a banquet
to make up for this. By Jove!"
"What is it?"
"I forgot about your throat. It hurts?"
"Horribly. But I can manage."
Dallas said no more, but thought a great deal; and after placing the tin
aside he turned to the sledge to try whether he could not get at the
shovel bound to it somewhere, for the package was pressed all on one
side by the snow.
After a long search he found one corner of the blade, and drawing his
big sharp knife, he set to work chipping and digging with the point,
with the result that in about an hour he dragged out the tool.
"Now," he said, "we can get to work turn and turn. The thing is, where
to begin, for I have not seen the slightest glimmer of light."
"No; we must be buried very deep."
"Say pretty deep. Which way shall we try?"
"Up by the rock, and slope upward where the air seems to come."
"That's right. Just what I thought. And, look here, Bel, there's room
for a couple of cartloads of snow or more about us here, and my plan is
this: one will dig upward, and of course the snow will fall down of its
own weight. As it comes down the other must keep filling that
biscuit-tin and carrying it to the far end yonder and emptying it."
"And bury the sledge and the food."
"No: we can get a great deal disposed of before we come to that. Look
here--I mean, feel here. We have plenty of room to stand up where we
are. Well, that means that we can raise the floor. So long as we have
room to lie down, that is all we want."
"Yes, I suppose so."
"After a while we must get out all the food we want and take it with us
in the tunnel we make higher and higher as we go."
"Yes, that sounds reasonable," said Abel thoughtfully. "We shall be
drawing the snow down and trampling it hard beneath our feet."
"And, I believe, be making a bigger chamber about us as we work up
towards the light."
"Keeping close to the face of the rock, too," said Abel, "will ensure
our having one side of our sloping tunnel safe. That can never cave
in."
"Well done, engineer!" cried Dallas laughingly. "Here were we thinking
last night of dying. Why, the very remembrance of the way in which
animals burrow has quite cheered me up."
"That and the thought that we may have to mine underground for our
gold," replied Abel. "Shall I begin?"
"No; you're weak yet, and it will be easier to clear away my workings."
Without another word the young man felt his way to the end of their
little hole, tapped the rock with the shovel, and then stood perfectly
still.
"What is it?" asked Abel.
"I was trying to make out where the air comes from, and I think I have
hit it. I shall try and slope up here."
Striking out with the shovel and trying to cut a square passage for his
ascent, he worked away for the next hour, the snow yielding to his
efforts much more freely than he had anticipated; and as he worked Abel
tried hard to keep up with him, filling the tin, bearing it to the other
end beyond the sledges, and piling up the snow, trampling down the loads
as he went on.
Twice over he offered to take his cousin's place; but Dallas worked on,
hour after hour, till both were compelled to give up from utter
exhaustion, and they lay down now in their greatly narrowed cave to eat.
This latter had its usual result, and almost simultaneously they fell
asleep.
How long they had been plunged in deep slumber, naturally, they could
not tell. Night and day were the same to them; and as Dallas said, from
the hunger they felt they might have been hibernating in a torpid state
for a week, for aught they knew.
They ate heartily of the biscuits, Abel's throat being far less painful,
and once more the dull sound of the shovel began in a hollow, muffled
way.
A couple of hours must have passed, at the end of which time so much
snow had accumulated at the foot of the sloping shaft that Dallas was
compelled to descend and help his fellow-prisoner.
"This will not do," he said. "We must get out some more provisions
before we bury the sledges entirely."
"There is enough biscuit to keep us alive for a couple of days," replied
Abel. "Let us chance getting out, and not stop to encumber ourselves
with more provisions."
"It is risky, but I fancy that I am getting nearer the air. Go up and
try yourself."
Abel went up the sloping tunnel to the top with ease, Dallas having
clipped steps out of the ice, and after breathing hard for a few minutes
the younger man came down.
"You must be getting nearer the top. I can breathe quite freely there."
"Yes, and the snow is not so hard."
"Chance it, then, and go on digging," said Abel eagerly. "I will get
the snow away. I can manage so much more easily if I may put it down
anywhere. It gets trampled with my coming and going."
Dallas crept up to his task once more and toiled away, till, utterly
worn out, both made another meal and again slept.
Twice over this was repeated, and all idea of time was lost; still they
worked on, cheered by the feeling that they must be nearing liberty.
However, the plan arranged proved impossible in its entirety, the rock
bulging out in a way which drove the miner to entirely alter the
direction of his sap. But the snow hour after hour grew softer, and the
difficulty of cutting less, till all at once, as Dallas struck with his
spade, it went through into a cavity, and a rush of cool air came into
the sloping tunnel.
"Heavenly!" cried the worker, breathing freely now. "I'll slip down,
Bel. You must come up and have a mouthful of this."
He descended to the bottom, and Abel took the spade and went to his
place.
"The shovel goes through quite easily here," he said excitedly.
"Yes, and what is beyond?" shouted Dallas. "Can you see daylight?"
"No; all is black as ink. It must be a hole in the snow. We must get
into it, for the air comes quite pure and fresh, and that means life and
hope."
In his excitement he struck out with the shovel twice, and had drawn it
back to strike again, when there was a dull heavy crack, and he felt
himself borne sidewise and carried along, with the snow rising up and
covering his face.
The next minute, as he vainly strove to get higher, the movement ceased,
and he felt himself locked in the embrace of the snow, while his
breathing stopped.
Only for a moment, before the hardening crystal which surrounded his
head dropped away, and a rush of pure air swept over him and seemed to
bring back life.
Then the sliding movement entirely ceased, and he wildly shouted his
cousin's name.
His voice echoed from somewhere above, telling him that, though a
prisoner, he was free down to the shoulders, though his arms were
pinned.
But there was no other reply to the call, and he turned sick and faint
with the knowledge that Dallas must be once more buried deep, and far
below.
Around all was black darkness, and in his agony another desperate effort
was made; but the snow had moulded itself around him nearly to the neck,
and he could not stir a limb.
CHAPTER NINE.
UNDER PRESSURE.
The fit of delirium which once more attacked Abel Wray was merciful,
inasmuch as it darkened his intellect through the long hours of that
terrible night, and he awoke at last with the level rays of the sun
showing him his position in a hollow of a tremendous waste of snow,
while fifty yards away the sides of the rocky valley towered up many
hundred feet above his head.
But it was daylight, and instead of the ravine seeming a place of horror
and darkness, the snow-covered mountains flashed gloriously in the
bright sunshine, whose warm glow brought with it hope and determination,
in spite of the terrible sense of imprisonment, and the inability to
move from the icy bonds. The great suffering was not bodily, but
mental, and not selfish, for the constantly recurring question was, how
was it with Dallas?
But the sunshine was laden with hope. Dallas was shut in again, but he
had the tools and provisions with him, and he would be toiling hard to
tunnel a way out, _if_--
Yes, there was that terrible "if." But Abel kept it back; for it was
quite possible that he might still be getting a sufficient supply of air
to keep him alive.
How to lend him help?