George Manville Fenn

“ As he drew the door inward a little, there was a rush of snow and wind, and the fire roared as the sparks and ashes were wafted about the place, threatening to fire the two rough bed-places; and with the drifting fine snow a great lump forced its way in through the narrow crack, rushing towards the blaze, uttering a dismal howl.
Dallas thrust the door to and stared at the object before them, one of the great Eskimo dogs, with its thick coat so matted and covered with ice and snow that the hairs seemed finished off with icicles, which rattled as the poor brute moved. ”

“ With a tremendous effort, Dallas sprang up and struck at him, when there was a loud snarling yelp, and Abel cried in alarm, “What is it, Dal?”
“Dog,” said Tregelly, “smelling after grub. The poor brutes seem half starved. Hasn’t taken a bit out of either of you, has he? Good-night, my sons; I was dreaming I’d hit upon heaps of gold.”
Dallas sank back with a sigh of relief, and dropped off into a restful sleep, which lasted till morning, when they were aroused by a terrific sound of cracking as of rifles, mingled with a peculiar roar, and a strange rushing sound. ”

“ But there was no water at hand, and there was sufficient light from the glowing embers to expose every movement to an enemy without.
They stood there with every nerve on the strain, listening, while the dog whined uneasily, took a trot round the fire, and returned to the door, to stand with his head on one side again.
“There must be some one out there,” whispered Abel.
Dallas nodded, and made a sign to his cousin to be silent, for the dog whined uneasily again, turning to the young man, thrusting his muzzle against his hand, and looking up at him as if waiting for orders. ”

“ The gold must be up yonder, where it crumbles or is ground out of the rocky mountains, to be washed, in the course of ages, down the streams into the gravel and sand.”
“Ay, there must be plenty of it up yonder, my son,” said Tregelly, stepping out to shade his eyes and gaze upward towards the wilderness of mountains to the north, probably never yet trodden by the foot of man.
“Then I say, as we have come so far, let’s go on and find it,” cried Dallas; “and if we fail—well, it is only lying down at last to sleep! No one will know, for our bones will never be found. ”

“ Occasionally, too, either Dallas or Abel would stroll round with his gun and get a few ptarmigan or willow grouse. On lucky days, too, a brace of wild ducks would fall to their shot; but these excursions were rare, for there was the one great thirst to satisfy—that for the gold; and for the most part their existence during the brief summer was filled up by hard toil, digging and cradling the gold-bearing gravel, while they lived upon coarse bacon, beans, and ill-made cakey bread, tormented horribly the while by the mosquitoes, which increased by myriads in the sunny time. ”

“ The horrible chill of impending death, the bright light of reason, and the intense desire to live, roused the half-stunned adventurer to action.
Die? Like that? No!—when salvation was offered to him in this way.
It was horrible, but it was for life. There, close by him, slightly powdered with snow, was the unfortunate’s sledge, and in an instant he was tearing at the rope which bound its load to the framework. ”

“ A wave of energy seemed to inspire the great fellow, who picked up the rug that had sheltered him during the night, and gave Dallas a nod.
“When a man dies,” he said solemnly, “he wipes out all his debts. We don’t owe him nothing neither now.”
As Tregelly spoke he drew the rug carefully over the figure lying there, and the next minute set to work to make the fire blaze higher, while Dallas, with half-numbed hands, tried to help him by filling the billy with pieces of ice, setting it in the glowing embers, and refilling it as the solid pieces rapidly melted down. ”

“ The dog whined softly, and the unpleasant odour of burning hair began to fill the place as his bushy tail was swept once into the glowing embers.
“Give him part of the moose bone, Dal,” said Abel.
“If this blizzard keeps on we have only that to depend on, old fellow. I want to help the dog, but I must think of you.”
“Give it up,” said Abel gloomily, as he laid a hand on his bandaged foot. “Give him what there is, and then let him lie down and die with us. The golden dream is all over now. Look! the poor brute just managed to struggle here. He’s dying.” ”

“ 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, mad or no, Dallas had, in his ignorance of the great danger of the act, run down, boldly leaped on the moving ice, and stepped from block to block till he reached the dog, which began to whine and bark loudly, as it made frantic efforts to free its hindquarters. In another minute it would have been drawn down farther, but for the coming of the young man, who, heedless of the rocking and gliding motion of the ice, strode the narrow opening between the two masses which held the dog, stooping down at the same moment, and seizing the poor brute by the rough hair about its neck. ”

“ Dallas made a quick movement at last, turned over, and picked up a half-burned, still smouldering piece of pine, painfully raked others together with it, and threw it on the top, glad to cower over the warm embers, for the heat thrown out was pleasant.
As he sat there after raking the ashes more together, and getting closer, it was to feel the warmth strike up into his chilled limbs, and fill the rug he had drawn round his shoulders with a gentle glow. ”

“ The next moment he had thrown himself upon his assailant. In an instant his hands were upon his throat. And now a terrible struggle ensued, in which a strange sense of strength came back to Abel; and he kept his hold, as, failing to extricate himself, his assailant retaliated by seizing him in the same way, and kept on raising and beating the fettered man’s head against the floor.
For in their struggle they had writhed and twisted till they were approaching the fire; and as they strove on in their fight for the mastery, Abel was conscious of hearing a loud yelp. ”

“ Abel bowed down his face in his hands to hide its spasmodic contractions; while Dallas rose, stepped slowly towards it, and reached over the glowing flame to touch a projecting nugget—bright, glowing in hue, and quite warm from the reflection of the fire.
“Ah!” he sighed softly, as if convinced at last; “it is real, and not a dream.”
Tregelly turned his back, began to whistle softly an old tune in a minor key, and drew the coffee, the bacon pan, and the bread a little farther away.
“Ahoy there, my sons!” he cried cheerily; “breakfast! Fellows must eat even if they are millionaires.” ”

“ Dallas said to himself. “The idea was brave and strong, but it was the romance of a boy. Fortunes are not to be made by one stroke, but by patient, hard work, long thought as to how that work shall bring forth fruit, and then by constant application. Ah, well, we are not the first to make such mistakes—not the first to turn our backs upon the simple substance to grasp at the great shadow.”
He lay gazing sadly at the crackling fire, whose flames danced, and whose sparks eddied into spirals and flew upwards on the heated air ”

“ 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.” ”

“ I believe we should make more money over the job than by going to dig it out.”
“Let’s try the gold-digging first,” said Dallas; and with a cheer the men set to work at the trees selected, the axes ringing and the pine-chips flying in the bright sunshine till trunk after trunk fell with a crash, to be lopped and trimmed and dragged down to the water’s edge ready for rough notching out to form the framework of such a raft as would easily bear the adventurers, their sledges and stores, down the lake and through the torrents and rapids of the river in its wild and turbulent course. ”

“ 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?” ”

“ For a moment or two the men stood as if paralysed, gazing at the fallen youth. Then Dallas looked sharply round, caught sight of a thin film of smoke curling up from the edge of the forest, and with a cry of rage ran toward the sledges, thrusting the handle of his axe through his belt, caught up his revolver from where it lay, and dashed towards the spot whence the firing must have come. ”

“ There was a dead silence, and then a gust of wind swept down the narrow valley, laden with fine, dusty snow, evidently a forerunner of a wintry storm.
“If we start back now,” said Abel at last, “we are not sure of reaching the settlement before the winter sets in.”
“And if we do we’ve nothing left to live upon, my sons. You see, those last supplies emptied the bag, and we’ve never settled down since. You both said, ‘Let it be a man or a mouse.’”
“And you said ‘All right,’” cried Dallas angrily.
“So I did, my son; but I hoped we should turn out men instead of mice.” ”

“ And so it was that he lay for long enough in the darkness, till the numb sensation began to give way to acute pain, which made him moan with anguish and mentally ask what he had done that he should have been chosen to remain there and go through all that horror and despair again.
The natural self is stronger than the educated man in times of crisis. A despairing wretch tells himself that all is over, and plunges into a river or pool to end his weary life; but the next moment the nature within him begins to struggle hard to preserve the life the trained being has tried to throw away. ”

“ Begging your bread in golden days.
“It is the dog’s master, Bel,” whispered Dallas, springing to the door and beginning to unfasten it, just as the dog raised his head and whined dismally.
The disposition was there to help, and as soon as he could get the door open, Dallas dashed out into the whirling snow, which rushed in blinding eddies about the hut, while Abel, awestricken and panting, clung to the post and tried to pierce the black darkness.
“It is madness. It means death,” he groaned to himself. ”

“ Be ready, and if he’s an enemy let him have it. Hah! Bravo! Good dog! You’re not so very bad, then.”
For at the sound of the heavy footsteps coming at a trot over the creaking snow Scruff uttered a fierce growl, began to bay and dashed out into the darkness.
“He’ll have him,” said Dallas. “But come on; we mustn’t leave it all to him.”
“Hullo there!” came in a cheery, familiar voice. “Good old dog!” and Scruff’s fierce bay changed to a whining yelp of pleasure, while Tregelly’s hearty cry of “Ahoy!” came. ”

“ I feel now as if I should like a pipe.”
The big, amiable, honest face lit up, and was lightened by a smile as he began searching his pockets for his tobacco-pouch and pipe.
“You see, I never killed a man before,” he said. “But you can hardly call a chap like that a man. More like a wild beast—sort o’ tiger.”
“It’s insulting a wild beast to say so, Bob,” cried Dallas warmly. “A wild beast kills for the sake of food. What’s the matter?”
“Pipe,” said Tregelly, rising slowly and reaching out for the lantern. “I told you I dropped it out yonder, and it’s somewhere by the sledge.” ”

“ Then all at once the front portion—the apex of the elongated triangle—rose as if at a leap, dipped again, and they were off with a terrific rush in a narrow channel of rock, up whose sides the water rose as if to escape the turmoil. Wave rose above wave, struggling to get onward; there was the roar of many waters growing more deafening, and the raft was tossed about like a straw, its occupants being forced to kneel and try to fend her off from the sides. ”