Thus it was that, having traced Dorothy and her brothers from the house, the young Westerner came upon the site of the accident to Roger just as the girl and Joe discovered the disappearance of the smaller boy in the deep drift.
“Run for help, Joe!” Dorothy was crying. “Bring somebody! And ropes! No! don’t you dare jump into that drift! Then there will be two of you lost. Oh!”
“Hooray!” yelled Joe at that instant. “Here’s Mr. Knapp!”
Dorothy could not understand Garry’s appearance; but she had to believe her eyesight. Before the young man, approaching now by great leaps, had reached the spot they had explained the trouble to him.
“Don’t be so frightened, Dorothy,” he cried. “The boy won’t smother in that snowdrift. He’s probably so scared that——”
Just then a muffled cry came to their ears from below in the drifted gulch.
“He isn’t dead then!” declared Joe. “How’re we going to get him out, Mr. Knapp?”
“By you and Miss Dorothy standing back out of danger and letting me burrow there,” said Garry.
He had already thrown aside his coat. Now he leaped well out from the edge of the gully bank, turning in the air so as to face them as he plunged, feet first, into the drift.
It was partially hollowed out underneath—and this fact Garry had surmised. The wind had blown the snow into the gully, but a hovering wreath of the frozen element had tempted Roger upon its surface and then treacherously let him down into the heart of it.