He seized his shovel and began to scrape the embers of his fire together. With a shout he dropped his shovel, fell on his knees, and gazed into the fire. Under the heap of burning wood there was a mass of glowing coal.
"Coal!" he shouted, rushing to the front of the cave. "Coal! Coal! Oh, Jack! Dear old Jack! It's coal!"
Trembling between fear and hope, he broke in pieces the glowing lumps, rushed back to the seam, gathered more of the black stuff, and heaped it around the fire. Soon his doubts were all at rest. The black lumps were soon on fire and blazed up with a blue flame. But for his foot, he would have mounted Jacob and ridden straight off for the ranch through all the storm.
"Let her snow!" he cried, gazing into the whirling mist before his eyes. "I've got the stuff that beats blizzards!"
He turned to his tea making, now pausing to examine the great black seam, and again going to the cave entrance to whistle for his dogs. As he stood listening to the soft whishing roar of the storm, he thought he heard the deep bay of Queen's voice. Holding his breath, he listened again. In the pause of the storm he heard, and distinctly this time, that deep musical note.
"They're digging out a wolf," he said. "They'll get tired and come back soon."
He drank his tea, struggled down the steep slope, the descent made more difficult by the covering of soft snow upon it, and drew another pail of water for evening use. Still the dogs did not appear. He went to the cave's mouth again, and whistled loud and long. This time quite distinctly he caught Queen's long, deep bay, and following that, a call as of a human voice.
"What?" he said, "some one out in that storm?"
He dropped upon his knees, put his hands up to his ears, and listened intently again. Once more, in a lull of the gale, he heard a long, clear call.
"Heavens above!" he cried, "a woman's voice! And I can't make a hundred yards with this foot of mine."