The shout and signal had come from Webber, the blacksmith, riding a big, bay mare. Instantly Field, Bone, and Lufkins galloped to where he was swinging out of his saddle.
There in the snow, where at last he had floundered down after making an effort truly heroic to return to Borealis, lay the gray old Jim, with tiny Skeezucks strapped to his breast and hovered by his motionless arms. In his hands the little mite of a pilgrim held his furry doll. On the snow lay the luncheon Miss Doc had so lovingly prepared. And Tintoretto, the pup, whom nature had made to be joyous and glad, was prostrate at the miner's feet, with flakes of white all blown through the hair of his coat. A narrow little track around the two he loved so well was beaten in the snow, where time after time the worried little animal had circled and circled about the silent forms, in some brave, puppy-wise service of watching and guarding, faithfully maintained till he could move no more.
For a moment after Bone and Lufkins joined him at the spot, the blacksmith stood looking at the half-buried three. The whole tale of struggle with the chill, of toiling onward through the heavy snow, of falling over hidden shrubs, of battling for their lives, was somehow revealed to the silent men by the haggard, death-white face of Jim.
"They can't—be dead," said the smith, in a broken voice.
"He—couldn't, and—us all—his friends."
But when he knelt and pushed away some of the snow, the others thought his heart had lost all hope.
It was Field, however, who thought to feel for a pulse. The eager searchers from farther away had come to the place. A dozen pair of eyes or more were focussed on the man as he held his breath and felt for a sign of life.
"Alive!—He's alive!" he cried, excitedly. "And little Skeezucks, too!
For God's sake, boys, let's get them back to camp!"
In a leap of gladness the men let out a mighty cheer. From every saddle a rolled-up blanket was swiftly cut, and rough but tender hands swept off the snow that clung to the forms of the miner, the child, and the pup.