They found places where he had hunted for fuel, and firing signals

regularly they reached the spot where he had camped the night before,

and saw the ashes of his fire. He was headed south; not because there

was more hope that way--there was less--but as if he must keep moving,

and that were easiest. A quarter of a mile below where he had spent

the night they caught sight of a man sitting on a fallen tree resting

his leg. The next moment three men were in a tumbling race across the

slope, and Blood, weakly hurrahing, fainted in Glover's arms.

His story was short. He reminded his rescuers of the little spring on

the hill at the point where the wreck had occurred. The ice that

Advertisement..

always spread across the track and over the edge of the gulch had been

chopped out by the shovellers the afternoon before, but water trickling

from the rock had laid a fresh trap for unwary feet during the night.

In jumping from the gangway at the moment of the wreck Blood's heels

had landed on smooth ice and he had tumbled and slid six hundred feet.

Recovering consciousness at the bottom of a washout he found the calf

of one leg ripped a little, as he put it. The loss of one side of his

mustache, swept away in the slide, and leaving on his face a peculiarly

forlorn expression, he did not take account of--declaring on the whole,

as he smiled into the swimming eyes around him, that with the exception

of tobacco he was doing very well.

They got him in front of a big fire, plied him with food and

stimulants, and Glover, from a surgical packet, bandaged anew the wound

in his leg. Then came the question of retreat.

They discussed two plans. The first to retrace their steps entirely;

the second, to go back to where the gap could be attempted and the

western track gained below the hill. Each meant long and severe

climbing, each presented its particular difficulties, and three men of

the four felt that if the torn artery opened once more their victory

would be barren--that Blood needed surgical aid promptly if at all.

But Dancing had a third plan.

It was while they still consulted at this point that their fire was

seen on Pilot Hill and reported to Bucks at the Brock car, from which

the rapidly moving party had been seen only at long intervals during

the morning.

The fire was the looked-for signal that the superintendent had been

reached, and the word went from group to group of men up the hill.

Through the strong glass that Glover had left with her, Gertrude could

see the smoke, and the storming signals of the panting engines above

her made sweeter music after she caught with her eye the faint column

in the distant gap. Even her father, feeling still something like a

conscript, brightened up at the general rejoicing. He had produced his

own glass and let Gertrude with eager prompting help him to find the

smoke. The moment the position of Glover's party was made definite,

Bucks ordered the car run down the Hog's Back to a point so much closer

that across the broad cañon, flanking Pilot on the south, they could

make out with their glasses the figures of the three men and, when they

began to move, the smaller figure of Morris Blood.




Most Popular