To Win or to Die Part 49

"Yes, wonderfully," said Dallas, who crouched there gazing at the figure where the bank of snow had been.

"It's my belief that we've slept a good four-and-twenty hours, and that it's night again."

"Think so?"

"I do, my son, and it's to-morrow night, I believe. I say, how the snow has melted away. Why, hullo!" he shouted, as the flames leapt up merrily now, "who's that?"

"I don't know," faltered Dallas; "I thought at first it was you."

"Not a dead 'un?" whispered Tregelly in an awestruck tone.

"Yes; and whoever it was must have been buried in that bank of snow, so that we did not see him last night."

Tregelly drew a burning brand from the fire, gave it a wave in the air to make it blaze fiercely, and stepped towards the rec.u.mbent figure lying there.

"Hi! Look here, my son," he cried. "No wonder we didn't see him come back."

Dallas grasped the fact now, and the next moment he too was gazing down at the fierce face, icily sealed in death, the light playing upon the huge red beard, while the eyes were fixed in a wild stare.

"Hah!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Tregelly. "He'll do no more mischief now, my son.

But what was he doing here? Rather a chilly place for a man to choose for his lair. Thought he was safe, I suppose. Only look."

For a few moments Dallas could not drag his eyes from the horrible features of their enemy, about which the dog was sniffing in a puzzled way. But at last he turned to where Tregelly was waving the great firebrand, which shed a bright light around.

"It was his den, Master Dallas," growled Tregelly. "Look here, this was all covered with snow last night when we lit the fire, and it's all melted away. Why, only look, my son; he spent all his time trying to do for us, and what's he done?--he's saved all our lives. Flour, bacon, coffee. What's in that bag? Sugar. Why, this is all his plunder as he's robbed from fellows' huts. There's his gun, too, and his pistol.

But what a place to choose to live in all alone! You'd ha' thought he'd have had a shelter. Here, I'm not _going_ to die just yet."

A wave of energy seemed to inspire the great fellow, who picked up the rug that had sheltered him during the night, and gave Dallas a nod.

"When a man dies," he said solemnly, "he wipes out all his debts. We don't owe him nothing neither now."

As Tregelly spoke he drew the rug carefully over the figure lying there, and the next minute set to work to make the fire blaze higher, while Dallas, with half-numbed hands, tried to help him by filling the billy with pieces of ice, setting it in the glowing embers, and refilling it as the solid pieces rapidly melted down.

They were both too busy and eager to prepare a meal from the life-saving provender they had so strangely found, to pay any heed to Abel.

"Let him rest, my son, till breakfast's ready; he's terribly weak, poor lad. Mind, too, when we do rouse him up, not to say a word about what's lying under that rug. I'll pitch some wood across it so as he shan't notice before we wake him up."

Dallas nodded, and with a strange feeling of renewed hope for which he could not account, he worked away; for it seemed the while that the store of provisions they had found would do no more for them than prolong their weary existence in the wild for two or three weeks.

Tregelly brought forward more wood from the shelter they had formed; the fire burned more brightly; bacon was frying, and the fragrance of coffee and hot cake was being diffused, when, just as Dallas was thinking of awakening his cousin to the change in their state of affairs, a hoa.r.s.e cry aroused him and made him look sharply at where, unnoticed, Abel had risen to his knees; and there, in the full light of the fire, he could be seen pointing.

"We're too late, my son," growled Tregelly; "he has seen it. Meant to have covered it before he woke."

"No, no; he is not pointing there."

"Look! Look!" cried Abel.

"Poor lad, he's off his head," whispered Tregelly.

"Do you hear me, you two?" cried Abel hoa.r.s.ely. "Look! Can't you see?"

"What is it, Bel?" said Dallas soothingly, as he stepped round to the other side of the fire; and then, following the direction of his cousin's pointing finger, he too uttered a wild cry, which brought Tregelly to their side, to gaze in speechless astonishment at the sight before them.

For the thick glazing of ice had been melted from the perpendicular wall of rock at the back of their fire, and there, glistening and sparkling in the face of the cliff, were veins, nuggets, and time-worn fragments of rich red gold in such profusion, that, far up as they could see, the cliff seemed to be one ma.s.s of gold-bearing rock, richer than their wildest imagination had ever painted.

The effect upon the adventurers was as strange as it was marked.

Abel bowed down his face in his hands to hide its spasmodic contractions; while Dallas rose, stepped slowly towards it, and reached over the glowing flame to touch a projecting nugget--bright, glowing in hue, and quite warm from the reflection of the fire.

"Ah!" he sighed softly, as if convinced at last; "it is real, and not a dream."

Tregelly turned his back, began to whistle softly an old tune in a minor key, and drew the coffee, the bacon pan, and the bread a little farther away.

"Ahoy there, my sons!" he cried cheerily; "breakfast! Fellows must eat even if they are millionaires."

It was too much for Dallas, before whose eyes was rising, not the gold, for he seemed to be looking right through that, but the wistful, deeply-lined face of a grey-haired woman at a window, watching ever for the lost ones' return.

At Tregelly's words he burst into a strangely harsh, hysterical laugh, and then, too, he sank upon his knees and buried his face in his hands, remaining there motionless till a hand was laid upon his shoulder, and he started to find it was Abel who was gazing in his eyes.

"Dal," he cried, in a voice that did not sound like his own, "we shall pay the old uncle now."

At that moment the dismal tune Tregelly was whistling came to an end, and they saw that he was sitting with his back to them, looking straight away.

They stepped quickly to his side, and he started up to hold a hand to each.

"To win or to die, didn't you say, my sons?" he cried cheerily.

"Yes, something like that," replied Dallas huskily.

"Well, it means winning, my sons," cried Tregelly, "for we won't die now."

CHAPTER FORTY ONE.

SHOWING HOW GOOD CAME OUT OF EVIL.

The store of provisions proved on examination to be far greater than had been antic.i.p.ated, and it seemed plain enough that their enemy had, while seeking a place of refuge from which he might carry on his nefarious career, hit accidentally upon the greatest discovery of gold that had been made; and after decently disposing of his remains, the three adventurers began to examine with something approaching breathless awe the vast treasure that they could claim as theirs.

The first thing to be done, though, was to make use of their axes and contrive a shelter right in the centre of the patch of dwarf pine, their plan being to hack out the size of the hut they intended to make in the dense scrub, saving everything approaching to a straight pole to use for roofing.

They worked well, for the discovery of the gold and a fair supply of provisions seemed to send new life into them; and before many hours had pa.s.sed they were provided with shelter for themselves and their stores.

Their next step was to mark out and peg what was legally allowed to each man as discoverer of a new field's claim. And now, in spite of the lateness of the season and their height up in the mountains, it seemed as if fate had ceased to persecute them and was ready to help them make the treasure they had found safely their own.

It was too late to expect to do much before the winter closed in with its inclement darkness, so the energies of all were devoted to making the most of the glorious spell of fine weather which now ensued, and preparing for the winter.

"We've found it; and after it has been lying here ever since the world began," said Tregelly, "it isn't likely to fly away now, and n.o.body's going to take it away from us. First thing is, have we got as much on our claim as ever we're likely to want?"