“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.”