ou right back on to this stone, sir. I must hurt you a bit, but
I can't help that."

"Go on," said Bracy; and the next moment he was drawn back upon the
stone, with no worse suffering than a fit of faintness, for his leg was
numb with the cold.

"Right, sir. Now your rifle and mine across your legs. Stop; my
_poshtin_ first. May want it again. Got the cartridges handy?"

"Yes."

"Then I sits here between your legs, sir. Just room, and I can steer
and put on the break with my heels. Ready, sir?"

"Yes."

"Then off."

The surface of the snow was like glass with the night's frost, and the
stone began to glide at once, just as the first gleams of the rising sun
lit up the spot where such terrible hours had been spent; and the next
minute, with a strange, metallic, hissing sound, the pair were gliding
down the slope at a steady rate, which Gedge felt it in his power to
increase to a wild rush by raising his heels from the surface upon which
they ran.

"All right, sir?"

"Yes, all right. Go on."

"Ain't it wonderful, sir? Why, we can get down to the track long before
any of them can get up to it."

"Stop, then, to let them reach it and retreat."

"If you order me to, sir, I will; but they'll never try to stop us;
they'll scatter to see us coming down like this. Why, in less than an
hour, sir, we shall be all among the Ghoorkha lads, and then hoorray for
the fort!"

"Go on, then. I trust to you."

"Right, sir," cried Gedge excitedly; and in spite of several risks of
overturning, he steered the novel toboggan sledge down the gigantic
slide, with the wild, metallic, hissing sound rising and falling on the
keen wind that fanned their cheeks, and a glistening prismatic, icy dust
rising behind them like a snaky cloud.

CHAPTER THIRTY FIVE.

THE IDEA TAMED.

Onward, swifter or slower, they moved as the undulations of the mighty
snow-slope ruled with the rough track crossing at right-angles far below
and gradually growing plainer, the white-coats of the fleeing enemy, the
kharkee jackets of the advancing line of Ghoorkhas, and the pulls of
smoke from each discharge coming nearer as if in a dream. The
excitement of the wild rush seemed to madden Gedge, who, as he found out
that he could easily control his rough chariot of stone, let it glide
faster and faster, his eyes sparkling, and the various phases of the
fight below sending a wild longing to be amongst it thrilling through
his nerves.

"