"I say, Ross," he burst out one day when he was frying bacon, "I never have thought of myself before as being made up of parts that must work together smoothly–and I never considered how they must work and that some one or other must know just how they ought to work so that he can put ’em together if they fall out of place. Now, about that femur, and ball and socket joint at the hip here––"
Immediately Ross plunged into a lively description which soon led both boys to the books for proof and illustration, and Leslie’s interest grew. From being merely the holder of the book while Ross recited and explained what he had studied, Leslie, the "hater" of studies, began to study also, at first, in a fitful way, and then more steadily as Ross proved himself an enthusiastic teacher.
Neither, however, became so absorbed in his studies as to become reconciled to his enforced residence above the seven spruces. Day after day they ventured out and up and down the cañon, or up the side of the mountain on the side of which their shack was located, but no discoveries resulted. The absence of snow-shoes made travel impossible except on top of a strong crust, and even then a realization of a constantly increasing danger resulted in making such trips shorter and shorter. The danger was this: blizzard succeeded blizzard until the willows, ten feet tall, which grew thickly in the cañon, were completely concealed, also the scrub hemlocks and quaking asp on the mountainside. The tops of the bushes, lashed by the wind until they became finally snow covered, formed each a dangerous hollow under a crust thinner and weaker than the surrounding surface. This painful discovery was made by Leslie.
One bright day, leaving Ross to cut off the branches of a tree that he had felled for fire-wood, Leslie took the gun and started down the cañon on a tour of exploration.
"The crust is stout enough to hold up an ox, Doc," he declared, bringing the butt of the gun down on it hard, "and I’m going out to see what there is to see–and shoot."
"Shoot!" echoed Ross, poising the axe in air. "I’d like to see something shootable up here beside coyotes, and we never see them–only hear ’em!" and the axe descended with a thud.
Leslie laughed, shouldered the gun and tramped briskly down the cañon, while Ross wielded the axe and, whistling cheerfully, thought of the progress he was making in his studies.
Presently, he rested on his axe handle and chafed his cheeks and nose briskly with the shaggy mittens he had found in the box of clothing left in the shack. "I don’t want any more frost bites in mine!" he muttered. He had had several experiences of the kind that winter, the altitude being so great that he did not realize the intense cold until nose or cheek or ear had become frost nipped.
He was resuming his axe when a faint sound traveled up the cañon on the wings of a slow south wind. Ross straightened himself and listened. Again came the wind and the sound. With the axe in his hand he slipped and slid down the mountainside until he stood in the cañon below the seven spruce trees. There he paused long enough to distinguish in the sound the faint muffled cry, "Ross!" and "Help!"
"Coming!" yelled Ross frantically. "Where are you?"