To Win or to Die | Page 2

at the sledge; but it did not seem lighter. It grew more heavy, and the obstacles were terrible to surmount.
But he knew he was in the right track through the pathless waste of heaped-up snow. There was no mistaking that awful gorge, with the rocks piled up like Titanic walls on either side. He knew that he could not go wrong. All he had to do was to persevere, and he plodded on.
"Never mind if it's only yards instead of miles surmounted," he muttered. "They are so many yards nearer the winning post."
At last, as he fought his way on, with his unwonted exertions beginning to tell mentally and bodily, he broke out talking wildly to fight back the horrible sensation of depression, and was brought to a standstill, the sledge having jammed between two blocks of ice-covered rock; and he stood for some minutes gazing round hopelessly at the fast-dimming scene, which had looked picturesque in the morning, but appeared awful now.
"I ought to have had a companion," he muttered, "if it had only been a dog."
He stood still, staring at the precipices on either side, whose chasms were beginning to look black; then at his jammed-in sledge; and he felt that he must drag it out and go on again, for night was coming on, and he could not camp where he was.
Then as he was wearily and slowly stooping down to drag the sledge back, he made a sudden bound as if electrified, tried to run, tripped, and fell heavily.
For all at once there was a roar like thunder, a terrible rushing sound, the echoes of the mountains seemed to have been let loose, and his hair began to bristle, while a cold perspiration gathered on his face as he listened to the sounds dying away in rumbling whispers.
"Away up to the right," he said to himself as he gazed in that direction, realising that it was a snow-fall. Thousands of tons had gone down somewhere out of sight; but he was safe, and giving the sledge a jerk, he set it free, guided it over the snow, and prepared for another start.
But that avalanche had somewhat unnerved him, for he had been looking out for a place to camp, and it now seemed madness to think of coming to a halt there.
"Must find a safer place," he thought; and now fresh dangers began to suggest themselves. Would there be wolves in these mountains? Certainly there must be bears; and dragging off one of his big fur gloves, he took out and examined his revolver, before replacing it in its leather holster. He glanced, too, at his rifle in its woollen case, bound on the top of the loaded sledge.
"Bah! how cowardly one can turn!" he muttered. "Of course, there will be all those troubles to face. I'm fagged--that's what it is. Now, then, old fellow, gee up! I'll camp in the first sheltered nook I see; I'm sure to find one soon. Then supper in the warm bag and a good night's rest. Sleep? I could lie down and sleep here in the snow. Pull up! That's the way. I wonder how much gold I could drag on a sledge like this?"
For quite another hour he toiled on, and perhaps got over a quarter of a mile, always gazing anxiously ahead for a suitable shelter, but looking in vain.
Then he utterly broke down, catching his foot against a block which the darkness hid from his fast-dimming eyes; and with a sob of misery as he saved himself from striking his face, at the expense of a heavy wrench to one wrist, he lay perfectly still, feeling a strange drowsy sensation creeping over him.
"This will not do," he cried aloud in alarm, for he knew that giving way to such a feeling in the snow meant resigning himself to death; and he painfully rose to his knees, and then remained, staring wildly before him, wondering whether he was already dreaming. For not far away, flashing and quivering in reflections from the precipice wall on his left, there was a light which kept rising and falling.
No dream, but the reflected light of a camp fire. Others, bound upon the same mission as himself, must be close at hand; and staggering now to his feet, he placed his gloved hands to his lips and gave forth a loud echoing "Ahoy!"
The next moment his heart beat high with joy, and the horrible perils of frost and darkness in that unsheltered place faded away into nothingness, for his hail was answered from close at hand.
"Ahoy! Who is it?" came echoing back.
"Help!" shouted the adventurer; and then he sank upon his sledge with heart throbbing and a strange giddiness attacking him.
CHAPTER TWO.
FALLEN AMONG THIEVES.
"Hullo, there!" cried a rough voice. "Why don't you