essed now if I don't feel a reg'lar mouse--a
poor, shiverin' wet mouse with his back up, and ready to die o' fright
through being caught in a trap, just as the poor little beggars do, and
turns it up without being hurt a bit. I can't help it; I'm a beastly
coward; and I says it out aloud for any one to bear. That's it--a
cussed coward, and I can't help it, 'cause I was born so. He's gone,
and I shan't never find him agen, and there's nothing left for me to do
but sneak back to the fort, and tell the Colonel as we did try, but luck
was agen us.

"Nay, I won't," he muttered. "I'll never show my face there again, even
if they call it desertion, unless I can get to the Ghoorkha Colonel and
tell him to bring up his toothpick brigade.

"Oh, here, I say, Bill, old man," he said aloud after a pause, during
which he listened in vain for some signal from his officer, "this here
won't do. This ain't acting like a sojer o' the Queen. Standin' still
here till yer get yerself froze inter a pillar o' salt. You've got to
fetch your orficer just as much now as if if hailed bullets and bits o'
rusty ragged iron. Here goes. Pull yourself together, old man! Yer
wanted to have a slide, so now's your time."

Grasping his rifle, he squatted down on his heels, and laid the weapon
across his knees preparatory to setting himself in motion, on the faint
chance of gliding down to where Bracy would have gone before him.

"Would you have thought it so steep that he could have slithered away
like that? But there it is," he muttered. "Now then, here goes."
Letting himself go, he began to glide slowly upon his well-nailed shoes;
then the speed increased, and he would the next minute have been rushing
rapidly down the slope had he not driven in his heels and stopped
himself.

"Well, one can put on the brake when one likes," he muttered; "but he
couldn't ha' gone like this or I should have heard him making just the
same sort o' noise. He had no time to sit down; he must ha' gone on his
side or his back, heads up or heads down, and not so very fast. If I go
down like this I shall be flying by him, and p'raps never stop till I
get to the end of the snow. I know--I'll lie down."

Throwing himself over on his side, he gave a thrust with his hands and
began to glide, but very slowly, and in a few seconds the wool of his
_poshtin_ adhered so firmly to the smooth surface that he was brought up
and had to start himself again.

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