Seabury made no answer. Shaking with nervousness, he could not trust himself to speak.
Regaining the trail, Hedges started off again, cautiously enough at first. But a little success seemed to restore his confidence, and he began to use his staff as a brake with less and less frequency. They had gone perhaps a quarter of a mile when a sudden heavier gust of stinging flakes momentarily blinded them both. Seabury instantly put on the brake and almost stopped. When he was able to clear his eyes, Hedges was out of sight. An instant later there came a sudden crash, a startled, muffled cry, and then—silence!
Horrified, Seabury instantly jerked his staff out of the snow and sped forward. At first, he could barely see the tracks of his companion's skees, but presently the storm lightened a trifle and of a sudden he realized what had happened. Hedges had misjudged a sharp curve in the trail and, instead of following it, had plunged off to one side and down a steep declivity thickly grown with trees. At the foot of this little slope Seabury found him lying motionless, a twisted heap, face downward in the snow.
Sick with horror, the boy bent over that silent figure. “Bill!” he cried, “what has—”
His voice died in a choking sob, but a moment later his heart leaped as Hedges stirred, tried to rise, and fell back with a stifled groan.
“It's—my ankle,” he mumbled, “I—I've—turned it. See if you can't—”
With shaking fingers, Seabury jerked at the buckles of his skees and stepped out of them. Hedges' left foot was twisted under him, and the front part of his skee was broken off. As Paul freed the other's feet from their encumbering straps, Bill made a second effort to rise, but his face turned quite white and he sank back with a grunt of pain.
“Thunder!” he muttered. “I—I believe it's sprained.”
For a moment or two he sat there, face screwed up, arms gripping his knees. Then, as his head cleared, he looked up at the frightened Seabury, a wry smile twisting the corners of his mouth.
“I'm an awful nut, kid,” he said. “I forgot that curve and was going too fast to pull up. Reckon I deserve that crack on the head and all the rest of it for being so awfully cocky. Looks as if we were in rather a mess, doesn't it?”