close up to it that they had been first buried, the fresh collapse, when
the snow had fallen away and borne him with it, having taken him the
above distance. It was probable, then, that Dallas would not be now
very far below the glittering surface of the snow.
How to get at him?
Abel's first thought was to free one arm. If he could do that he might
possibly be able to get at his knife, dragging it from the sheath at his
waist. Then the work would be comparatively easy, for he could dig away
the partly consolidated snow in which he was cased, and throw it from
him.
He set to, struggling hard, but without effect, for it seemed to him
that he was only working with his will, his muscles refusing to help;
and by degrees the full truth dawned upon him, that the absence of pain
was due to the fact that his body was quite benumbed, and a horrible
sensation of fear came over him, with the belief that all beneath the
snow must be frozen, and that he could do absolutely nothing to save his
life.
Even as he thought this the benumbed sensation seemed to be rising
slowly towards his brain.
"In a short time all will be over," he groaned aloud, "and poor Dal will
be left there, buried, thinking I have escaped and have left him to his
fate. Is there no way to escape from this icy prison?"
He wrenched his head round as far as he could, first on one side, and
then on the other; but it was always the same--the narrow valley with
its stupendous walls, no longer black and horrible with its unseen
horrors in the darkness of the night, but a wondrous way to a city of
towers and palaces gorgeous to behold. His eyes ached with the flashing
beauties of the scene. It was not the golden Klondike of his dreams,
but a land of silver, whose turrets and spires and minarets were
jewelled with diamonds, rubies, and emeralds; whose shadows were of
sapphire blue or darker amethyst; and whose rays flashed and mingled
till he was fain to close his eyes and ask himself whether what he saw
was part of some dazzling dream.
He looked again, to see that it was no vision, but a scene of beauty
growing more and more intense as the sun rose higher. The darkness had
fled to display these wonders; there was not a chasm or gully that was
not enlightened--everywhere save within the sufferer's darkened soul.
There all was the blackness of despair.
But black despair cannot stay for long in the breast of youth. Hope
began to chase it away, and inanimate though the body was, the brain
grew more active, offering suggestion after suggestion as to how he
might escape.
The sun was growing hotter minute by minute, and the reflections from
the pure white ice almost painful. Already, too, its effects were
becoming visible.
Just where the warm rays played on the edge of a gap whose lower
portions were of an exquisite turquoise blue, tiny crystal-like drops
were forming, and as Abel Wray gazed at them with straining eyes he saw
two run together into one, which kept gradually increasing in size till
it grew too heavy for its adhesion to last, and it fell out of sight.
Only a drop of water, but it was the end of May; the snows would be
melting, and before long millions of such drops would have formed and
run together to make trickling rivulets coursing along the snow; these
would soon grow into rushing torrents, and the snow would fall away, and
he would be free.
"What madness!" he groaned. "It will thaw rapidly till the sun is off,
and then freeze once more, and perhaps another avalanche will come.
Yes, I shall be thawed out some day, and some one may come along in the
future and find my bones."
He shuddered, for it was getting black within once more, and a delirious
feeling of horror began to master him, bringing with it thoughts of what
might come.
Bears would be torpid in their snow-covered lairs; but wolves!
He felt as if he could shriek aloud, and he had to set his teeth hard as
his eyes rolled round and up and down the gorge in search of some
wandering pack that would scent him out at once, and in imagination he
went through the brain-paralysing horror of seeing them approach, with
their red, hungry, glaring eyes, their foam-slavered lips and glistening
teeth.
There they were, five, seven, nine of them, gliding over the snow a
hundred yards away, their shadows cast by the sun upon the dazzling
white surface, and he uttered a hoarse cry and his head sank sideways as
he closed his eyes in the reaction.
No wolves, only the few magnified shapes of a covey of snow grouse, the
ryper of the Scandinavian land, which, after running for a while, rose
and passed over him with whirring wings, seeking the lower part of the
valley, where the snow was swept away.
Abel drew a long, deep breath, and then set his teeth once more as he
upbraided himself for his cowardice.
For was he not on the highway--the main track to the golden land; and
was it not a certainty that before long other adventurers would pass
that way?
What was that?
The prisoner listened, with every nerve on the strain, and it was
repeated.
So great was the tension, that as soon as the sound came for the second
time the listener uttered a wild shriek of joy. It was hardly a cry.
He had struggled to free himself from his icy bonds to go to his
cousin's help, and awakened to the fact that he was helpless, and he had
dared to despair, when all the time Dallas was alive and toiling hard to
come and free him. The sensation of joy and delight was almost
maddening, and he listened again.
There it was--a dull, low, indescribable sound which appealed to him all
through, for he felt it more with his chest than with his ears. It was
a kind of a jar which came through the snow, communicated from particle
to particle, telegraphed to him by the worker below, and it told that
Dallas was strong and well, and striving hard to get free.
How long would it take him to dig his way through? Not long, for he
could not be so deep down now.
He waited, counting every stroke of the shovel, and a fresh joy thrilled
the listener, for those light jars sent fresh hope in waves, telling him
as they did that though he was so benumbed, his body must be full of
sensation. It could not be deadened by the cold.
"Bah! I must naturally be a coward at heart," the poor fellow said to
himself. "Dal's worth a dozen of me. _I_ think of helping him? Pooh!
it is always he who takes that _role_."
But his mind went back again to the one thought--How long would it take
Dallas to dig his way out in spite of his wound? Not so very long--the
strokes of the shovel came so regularly. But what an escape for both!
"Not free yet, though," muttered the prisoner. "That's right, work
away, Dal. Your muscles were always stronger than mine. Get out and
we'll reach the gold yet, and win the prize we came for.--I wonder
whether he could hear me if I shouted!"
He bowed his head as far as he could, nearly touching the snow with his
lips.
"Dal, ahoy! ahoy!" he shouted; and a few moments after came the answer,
"Ahoy--ahoy-oy-oy!" from the icy rocks up the valley.
"Only the echoes," muttered Abel, as the sounds died away.
Then he started, for the hail came again, loud and clear, "Ahoy! Ahoy--
ahoy-oy-oy!" and then once more the echoes.
But the hail was from down the narrow valley, and these echoes were from
above.
"Hurrah! Help coming!" cried Abel wildly. "Ahoy, there! Help!"
He wrenched his head round to utter the cry, and was conscious of a
heavy pang in his injured throat. But what of that at such a time, when
the cry was answered by another? "Ahoy! ahoy!" No deceiving echo, for
in addition came, "Where are yer?" and that was echoed too.
Abel's lips parted to reply, but a chill of despair shot through every
nerve once more, and he uttered a bitter groan.
There they were--there could be no doubt of it. The three cowardly,
treacherous ruffians had escaped, and he was calling them to his help.
Not four hundred yards down the valley, plainly to be seen in the broad
sunshine, all three of them, two dragging a heavily laden sledge, the
other, the big-bearded ruffian, a short distance in front, in the act of
putting his hands to his mouth to shout again:
"Where away, O?"
"Will they see me with just my head out like this? Yes, they are
certain to, for they must come by here. Oh, Dal, Dal, old man, don't
dig now. For heaven's sake, keep still: they're coming to finish their
horrid work."
CHAPTER TEN.
A HUMAN FOSSIL.
"You be blowed!" cried a bluff cheery voice. "Eckers be jiggered!
Think I don't know the difference between a hecker an' a nail?"
"No."
"Don't I? I heered some one holloa, and as I don't believe in ghosts, I
say some one must be here. Ahoy! where are you, mate?"
The speaker turned from his two companions, who were dragging the sledge
up the slope of the snow-fall, and then smote one thigh heavily with the
palm of his great hand.
"I'm blest!" he shouted, as he ran a few steps and dropped on one knee
by Abel's head. "No, no; don't give in now, my lad. Hold up, and we'll
soon have you out o' this pickle. Here, out with shovels and pecks,
lads. Here's a director of the frozen meat company caught in his own
trap. Specimen o' Horsestralian mutton froze hard and all alive O.
Here, mate, take a sup o' this."
The speaker unscrewed the top of a large flask, and held it to Abel's
lips, trickling a few drops between them as the head fell back and the
poor fellow nearly swooned away.
"That's your sort. Never mind its being strong. I'd put some snow in
it, but you've had enough of that. Coming round, you are. What's it
been--a heavy 'lanche?"
"Yes, yes," gasped Abel; "but never mind me."
"What! Want to be cut out carefully as a curiosity--fly-in-amber sort
of a fellow?"
"No, no--my cousin! Buried alive, man. Hark! you can hear him digging
underground." The great sturdy fellow, who bore some resemblance to
ruddy-haired Beardy, sufficient in the distance and under the
circumstances of his excitement to warrant Abel's misapprehension,
stared at the snow prisoner for a few moments as if he believed him to
be insane.
"He's off his 'ead, mates, with fright," he said in a low voice to his
companions, who were freeing the shovels; but Abel heard him.
"No, no," he cried wildly. "I know what I am saying. Listen."
The great, frank-looking fellow laid his ear to the snow, and leaped up
again.
"He's right," he roared excitedly. "There's some one below--how many
were with you, my lad?"
"Only my cousin--we were buried together--but don't talk--dig, dig!"
"Yes, both of you, slip into it. Just here," cried the big man, "while
I get the pick and fetch this one out."
"No, no, not there," cried Abel frantically. "Dig yonder, there by the
rock wall."
"What, right over yonder? Sound's here."
"Go and listen there," cried Abel.
"Can you hold out?"
"Yes, yes; hours now. Save my cousin; for heaven's sake, quick!"
One of the men had gone quickly to the rocky wall, knelt down and
listened, and shouted back.
"He's right," cried this latter. "You can hear some one moleing away
quite plain."
"Dig, dig!" shouted Abel, and two of the new-comers began at once, while
the leader of the party went to their sledge and dragged a sharp-pointed
miner's pick from where it was lashed on.
"No, no," cried Abel imploringly, as the man returned to his side; "save
him."
"You keep quiet, my lad. I'm a-going to save you."
"But I can breathe," cried Abel.
"So can he, or he couldn't go on working. Two heavy chaps is quite
enough to be tramping over his head. Don't want my sixteen stone to
tread it hard. Have a drop more o' this 'fore I begin?"
"No, no! It is burning my mouth still."
"Good job too: put some life into you, just when you looked as if you
was going to bye-bye for good. Now then, don't you be skeart. I know
how to use a pick; been used to it in the Corn'll tin-mines. I could
hit anywhere to half a shadow round you without taking the skin off.
I'll soon have you out."
He began at once, driving the pick into the compressed snow; but after
the first half-dozen strokes, seeing how the fragments flew, he took off
his broad-brimmed felt hat and laid it against Abel's head as a screen.
Then commencing again he made the chips fly in showers which glittered
in the sunshine, as he walked backward, cutting a narrow trench with the
sharp-pointed implement, taking the prisoner's head as a centre and
keeping about thirty inches distant, and so on, round and round till the
channel he cut was as deep as the arm of the pick, and quite clear.
"Feel bad?" he said, pausing for a few moments.
"No, no," cried Abel. "How are they getting on?"
"Better'n me. If we don't look sharp your mate--what did you say he
was--cousin?--'ll be out first."
"I hope so," sighed Abel.
"Now then, shut your eyes, my son," cried the miner. "I'm going to cut
from you now. Lean your head away as much as you can. I've cut the
tire and felloes of the wheel; your head's the nave; now I'm going to
cut the spokes."
_Click, click, click_, went the pick.
"Don't you flinch, my son," cried the man. "I won't hit you."
Abel had winced several times over, for the bright steel tool had
whizzed by him dangerously close; but he grew more confident now, and,
as much as he could for the sheltering hat, he watched the wonderful
progress made by his rescuer, who at the end of a few minutes had deeply
cut two more channels after the fashion of the spokes running from the
centre to the periphery of the imaginary wheel.
After this, a few well-directed blows brought out the intervening snow
in great pieces, and upon these being cleared out another clever blow
broke the gathered snow right up to the young man's left arm, leaving
seven or eight inches below the shoulder clear.
"That's your sort, my son," cried the miner cheerily, chatting away, but
keeping the pick flying the while. "The best way to have got you out
would have been with a tamping iron, making a nice hole, dropping in a
dynamite cartridge, and popping it off. That would have sent this stuff
flying, only it might have blowed you all to bits, which wouldn't have
been pleasant. This is the safest way. How are you gettin' on, mates?"
"All right. He's 'live enough, Bob."
"Work away, then. Look here, my son, I did think of spoking you all
round, but I'm beginning to think it'll be better to keep on at you this
side, and then take you out of your mould sidewise like. There won't be
so much cutting to do, and you'll have one side clear sooner. What do
you say?"
"I want you to go and help your companions," replied Abel faintly.
"Then I'm sorry I can't oblige you," cried the man cheerily. "Look at
that now! This fresh stuff hasn't had time to get very hard. After a
few thawings and freezings it would be like clear solid ice. It's
pretty firm, but--there's another. Soon let daylight down by your ribs.
I want to get that hand and arm clear first so as you can hold the hat
to shade your face."
And all the time he chatted away, coolly enough, the pick was wielded so
dexterously, every blow being given to such purpose, that he cut out
large pieces of the compressed snow and hooked them out of the rapidly
growing hole.
It was the work of a man who had toiled for years amongst the granite
deep down in the bowels of the earth, and experience had taught him the
value of striking so as to save labour; but all the same the task was a
long one, and it grew more difficult the deeper down he went.
"'Bliged to make the hole bigger, my son," he said; "but you hold up; I
sha'n't be long now. I say, how deep down do you go? Are you a
six-footer?"
"No, I'm only about five feet eight," said Abel, whose face looked
terribly pained and drawn.
"Aren't you now?" said the man coolly. "I should ha' thought by the
look of your head and chest that you were taller. Been a longer job
with me. I'm over six foot three, and good measure. There, now that
arm's clear, aren't it? Can you lift it out?"
Abel shook his head sadly.
"There is no use in it," he said faintly.
"Might ha' knowed it. Bit numb like with the cold. But you keep a good
heart, and I'll have you out. It's only a bit o' work, and no fear of
caving in on us. Just child's play like. There's one arm clear, and a
bit of your side, and the rest'll soon follow."
The man paused in the act of getting the the top off the spirit-flask,
and shouted to his companions, "Hoi! Here, quick, lads, and help me
here. My one's going out."
For a ghastly look crossed Abel's face, his eyes grew fixed, as they
half-closed, and his head fell over on one side.
CHAPTER ELEVEN.
A COWARD BLOW.
The two men who had been fighting hard to reach Dallas, the sound of
whose strokes seemed nearer than ever, rushed to their companion, who
had begun chafing the buried man's face and temples, with the result
that Abel raised his head again and looked wildly round.
"I thought he was a goner, my sons," whispered the big fellow. "Go on
back to your chap; I'll manage here."
The two men, who were excited by their task, rushed back again, and
their companion moistened Abel's lips.
The man began to work his pick again with wonderful rapidity, enlarging
the hole, and every now and then giving a furtive glance at the prisoner
and another in the direction where his companions were tearing out the
icy snow.
The great drops stood on the big Cornishman's face as he toiled away,
enlarging the hole down beside Abel Wray, and all the time he kept up a
cheery rattle of talk about how useful a tool a pick was, and how the
lad he was helping--and whom he kept on calling "my son"--ought to have
brought one of the same kind for the gold working to come; but the look
in his big grey eyes looked darker and more sombre as he saw a grey
aspect darkening the countenance of the prisoner--the air he had seen
before in the faces of men whom he had helped to rescue after a fall of
roof in one of the home mines.
"He'll be a goner before I get him out if I don't mind," he said to
himself, and the pick rattled, and the icy snow flashed as he struck
here and there, only ceasing now and then to stoop and throw out some
big lump which he had detached.
"Better fun this, my son," he said with a laugh, "if all this was rich
ore to be powdered up. Fancy, you know--gold a hundredweight to the
ton. Rather different to our quartz rock at home, with just a sprinkle
of tin that don't pay the labour.
"Hah!" he cried at last, from where he stood in the well-like shaft he
had cut, and threw down his pick on the snow. "Now you ought to come."
He rose, took hold of Abel as he spoke, and found that his calculations
were right, for very little effort was required to draw him forward from
out of the snowy mould in which he was belted; and the next minute the
poor fellow lay insensible upon the snow, with his rescuer kneeling by
him, once more trickling spirit between the blue lips.
"Can't swallow," muttered the man, and he screwed up the flask, and set
to work rubbing his patient vigorously, regardless of what was going on
beneath the rocky wall, till there was a loud cheer, and his two
companions came towards him, each holding by and shaking hands heartily
with Dallas Adams. For they had mined down to where they could meet him
as he toiled upward to escape; and the first words of Dallas, when he
was drawn out hot and exhausted, were a question about his cousin.
The pair set at liberty joined in now in the endeavour to resuscitate
the poor fellow lying on the snow. Their sledge was unpacked, double
blankets laid down, and the sufferer lifted upon them, friction
liberally applied to the limbs, and at last they had the satisfaction of
seeing him unclose his eyes, to stare blindly for a time. Then
consciousness returned, there was a look of joy flashing out, and he
uttered the words hoarsely:
"Dal! Saved!"
"Yes, yes, all right, old lad, thanks to these true fellows here. How
are you?"
"Arms, hands, and legs burning and throbbing horribly. I can hardly
bear the pain."
The big Cornishman laughed.
"Only the hot-ache, my son," he said merrily. "That's a splendid sign.
You're not frost-bitten."
"God bless you for all you have done," cried Abel, catching at the big
fellow's hand. "I couldn't hold out any longer."
"Of course you couldn't. Why, your pluck was splendid."
"Thank him, Dal," cried Abel. "He has saved my life."
"Yah! Fudge! Gammon! Stuff! We don't want no thanking. You two lads
would have done the same. We don't want to be preached at. Tommy
Bruff, my son, what do you say to a fire, setting the billy to boil, and
a bit o' brax'uss?"
"Same as you do, laddie. Cup o' tea'll be about the right thing for
these two."
There was plenty of scrub pine at hand, swept down by the snow-fall, and
sticking out here and there. Axes were got to work, and soon after the
two sufferers were seated, covered with fur-lined coats, and revelling
in the glow of the fire, over which a big tin was steaming, while their
new friends were busy bringing out cake, bread, tea, and bacon from
their store in the partly unpacked sledge.
The big, bearded Cornishman had started a black pipe, and while his
companions replenished the fire and prepared for the meal, he sat on a
doubled-up piece of tarpaulin, and wiped, dried, and polished picks,
shovels, and axes ready for repacking. Every now and then he paused to
smile a big, happy, innocent-looking smile at the two who had been
rescued, just as if he thoroughly enjoyed what had been done, and then,
suddenly dropping the axe he was finishing, caught up a little measure
of dry tea, and shouting, "There, she boils!" tossed it into the tin
over the fire, lifted it off, and set it aside, and then laid the
freshly polished tools on the sledge.
Soon after, refreshed by the tins of hot tea, the rescued pair were able
to give an account of their adventures, the new-comers listening eagerly
and making their comments.
"Ho!" said the big Cornishman, frowning. "I expected we should come
across some rough 'uns, but I didn't think it was going to be so bad as
that. Scared, mates?"
"No," said one of his companions; "not yet."
"Nor yet me," said the other.
"Nor me neither," said the big fellow. "If it's going to be peace and
work, man and man, so much the better; but if it's war over the gold, we
shall have to fight. What's mine is mine, or ourn; and it'll go awkward
for them as meddles with me. I'm a nasty-tempered dog if any one tries
to take my bone away; aren't I, my sons?"
The two men addressed bent their heads back and burst into a roar of
laughter.
"Hark at him," said the man spoken to as Tommy. "Don't you believe him,
my lads. He's a great big soft-roed pilchard; that's what he is. Eh,
Dick Humphreys?"
"Yes; like a great big gal," assented the other.
"Oh, am I?" said the big fellow. "You don't know, my sons. But I say,
though," he continued, tapping the snow with his knuckles, "then for
aught we know them three blacks is buried alive just under where we're
sitting?"
"I'm afraid so."
"'Fraid? What are you 'fraid on?"
"It is a horrible death," said Abel, with a shudder.
"Well, yes, I suppose it is," said the Cornishman thoughtfully. "I say,
we ought to get digging to find 'em, oughtn't we?"
"We are not sure they are there," said Dallas.
"Of course you are not," continued the miner, "and I don't believe they
are. You see, your mate here took us for 'em. I believe Natur' made a
mistake and buried you two instead of them. If they are down below I
haven't heard no signs of them, and they must be dead. Why, it would
take us a couple of years to clear all this stuff away, and we mightn't
find 'em then. I say, though, what about your tackle?"
"Our sledges? They're buried deep down here."
"We shall have to get them out, then. You two won't be able to get
along without your traps."
Soon after an inspection of the position was made; one of the men
descended into the hole they had dug close up to the rock wall, and he
returned to give his opinion that by devoting a day to the task the
shaft could be so enlarged that they could drive a branch down straight
to the spot, and save the stores and tools, even if they could not get
the sledges out whole.
It took two days, though, during which no fresh comers appeared, the
report of the snow-fall having stopped further progress. At the end of
the above time, pretty well everything was saved by the help of the
miner and his companions, who gallantly stood by them.
"Oh, we've got plenty of time," said their leader, "and if these sort o'
games are going to be played, it strikes me that you two gents would be
stronger if you made a sort o' co. along of us. Don't if you don't care
to. What do you say to trying how it worked for a bit?"
This was gladly acceded to, and on the third day a move was made as far
as the spot where the grim discovery had been made.