“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.”