“Must find a safer place,” he thought; and now fresh dangers began to suggest themselves. Would there be wolves in these mountains? Certainly there must be bears; and dragging off one of his big fur gloves, he took out and examined his revolver, before replacing it in its leather holster. He glanced, too, at his rifle in its woollen case, bound on the top of the loaded sledge.
“Bah! how cowardly one can turn!” he muttered. “Of course, there will be all those troubles to face. I’m fagged—that’s what it is. Now, then, old fellow, gee up! I’ll camp in the first sheltered nook I see; I’m sure to find one soon. Then supper in the warm bag and a good night’s rest. Sleep? I could lie down and sleep here in the snow. Pull up! That’s the way. I wonder how much gold I could drag on a sledge like this?”
For quite another hour he toiled on, and perhaps got over a quarter of a mile, always gazing anxiously ahead for a suitable shelter, but looking in vain.
Then he utterly broke down, catching his foot against a block which the darkness hid from his fast-dimming eyes; and with a sob of misery as he saved himself from striking his face, at the expense of a heavy wrench to one wrist, he lay perfectly still, feeling a strange drowsy sensation creeping over him.
“This will not do,” he cried aloud in alarm, for he knew that giving way to such a feeling in the snow meant resigning himself to death; and he painfully rose to his knees, and then remained, staring wildly before him, wondering whether he was already dreaming. For not far away, flashing and quivering in reflections from the precipice wall on his left, there was a light which kept rising and falling.
No dream, but the reflected light of a camp fire. Others, bound upon the same mission as himself, must be close at hand; and staggering now to his feet, he placed his gloved hands to his lips and gave forth a loud echoing “Ahoy!”
The next moment his heart beat high with joy, and the horrible perils of frost and darkness in that unsheltered place faded away into nothingness, for his hail was answered from close at hand.
“Ahoy! Who is it?” came echoing back.
“Help!” shouted the adventurer; and then he sank upon his sledge with heart throbbing and a strange giddiness attacking him.