struck a rock, bounded high into the air, struck another rock and,
gaining momentum with every foot, shot diagonally downward--rolling,
whirling, sliding--straight for the brink of a rock ledge with a sheer
drop of twenty-five or thirty feet. Over the edge it shot and landed
with a loud thud among the broken rock fragments of the valley floor.

"We ought to have gone back!" shuddered the boy. "He's dead by this
time."

'Merican Joe shrugged. "Anyhow, dat com' queek. Dat better as if he lay
back onder de tree an' froze an' starve, an' git choke to deat' w'en his
air hole git froze shut. He got good strong coffin anyhow."

Relieved of their burden it was but the work of a few moments to gain
the floor of the valley and hasten to the form wedged tightly between
two upstanding boulders, where they were greeted by the voice of the
man raised in whining complaint.

"Are you hurt?" eagerly asked Connie, kneeling at the man's side and
looking at him closely.

"Naw, I ain't hurt but can't you pick out no smoother trail? I'm all
jiggled up!" In his relief at finding the man unharmed, Connie
laughingly promised a smoother trail, and as he and the Indian pried him
from between the rocks with a young tree, the boy noted that the frozen
moose hide had scarcely been dented by its contact with the trees and
rocks.

In the cabin the stove was crammed with wood and the man laid upon the
floor close beside it, but it was nearly daylight the following morning
before the hide had thawed sufficiently for the combined efforts of
Connie and the Indian to unroll it. All night the two tended the fire
and listened to the petty bickering and quarrelling of the two helpless
partners, the man in the bunk taunting the other with being a fool for
wrapping up in a green moose hide, and being in turn called a fool for
chopping his own foot. It was disgusting in the extreme to Connie but at
last the humour of the situation got the better of his disgust, and he
roared with laughter, all of which served to bring down the combined
reviling of both men upon his head.

When at last the man was extricated from his prison and found to be
little the worse for his adventure, he uttered no word of thanks to his
rescuers. Indeed, his first words were in the nature of an indirect
accusation of theft.

"Whur's my marten?" he asked, eying them with suspicion.

"What marten? We didn't see any marten," answered the boy.

"Well, I hed one. Tuk it out of a t