es with stores."

"And all through not leaving the dog and risking the fire."

"Poor Scruff!" said Abel. "Perhaps it's as well, for they would
probably have shot him."

"They might as well shoot us," cried Tregelly, "if this sort of thing is
to go on."

"Yes," said Dallas. "Everybody round must be warned at once."

Fortunately, further examination showed that the visitors to the hut
must have been hurried in their movements, and had been either unable to
carry away, or had overlooked, a portion of the remaining stores, so
that starvation did not quite stare them in the face; but it was
absolutely necessary that a journey to the settlement should be made at
once.

"My job this time," said Tregelly, as the matter was discussed by the
fire, where, armed with an axe, he was busily chipping a way into the
centre of the block of ice they had brought back. "Now, if those two
mates of mine hadn't grown sick of it, and gone back before the winter
come on, they'd just have been useful now."

"Did you quarrel?" asked Dallas.

"Quarrel? No, my son," said Tregelly, as he chipped away at the ice.
"They took the right notion one day that there was the long winter to
face, and that they'd better share and be off while their shoes was
good."

"Well?" said Dallas.

"Well, we shared, and they went home."

Then there was silence, save that the Cornishman went on chipping away
at the ice, more and more carefully, for he was getting through the top
of the shell, and the golden kernel was near, Scruff watching the
proceedings in rather a cynical or dog-like way, as if sneering at the
trouble these two-legged animals took to obtain something not good to
eat.

"Yes; it's terrible work in the dark," said Abel. "Perhaps they were
right."

"But the long days are coming," said Dallas cheerfully, "and then we'll
go farther north up one of the other creeks, towards the mountains.
There is abundance of gold if we could find it. And we must--we will
find it before we've done."

"That's right, my son," cried Tregelly. "We three won't give up till
we've had a reg'lar good try. Now then, here we are: all mixed up and
froze into a lump. Just hand me that iron bucket, Mr Wray, and I'll
chip it out into that, and throw it down by the fire. Wonder," he
added, as he began to break out the gilded ice, "whether there's much of
my share left."

The pieces of ice and gold went on rattling down till the last scrap was
emptied out, an