sign as that
before us?"

His companions stood and looked up in the direction indicated, where the
transformation that had taken place was wonderful.

An hour before they had gazed through drifting, dusty snow at forbidding
crags and wintry desolation. For a few minutes that one peak had
flashed out hopefully, but only to fade away again, while now their eyes
literally ached with the dazzling splendour of what seemed to be a
grotto-like palace of precious stones, set in frosted silver and
burnished gold; for the mountains blazed in the last rays of the setting
sun with the hues of the iris magnified into one gorgeous sheen.

"Yes, that looks as if we'd got to the golden land at last, my sons,"
said Tregelly. "It's something like what one has dreamed of after
reading the `Arabian Nights'; only you see they aren't fast colours, and
they won't wash."

"Never mind," said Dallas; "we know that the gold must be there, and
we'll find it yet. Ready?"

For answer Tregelly picked up the trace, and was about to pass it over
his head, but he paused and looked round.

"Here," he cried; "where's that there dog?"

Abel went into the rough shelter they had made, to find Scruff curled-up
fast asleep beneath one of the skins they were going to leave behind;
but he sprang up at a touch, and trotted out to take his place by
Tregelly, who slipped his slight harness over the sturdy animal's head.

"No shuffling now, my son," he said merrily. "You're stores, you know,
and we shall want you to eat when the rest of the prog is done.
Forward! we're going to do it now."

CHAPTER THIRTY NINE.

THE LAST BIVOUAC.

Shortening days and shortening distances in and out of the wild ravine,
where the water ran trickling merrily along in the brief sunny hours,
but froze hard again at night. Every halting-place was more difficult
to reach than the last, and climbing up the slippery sides of the stream
bed was as often the means of progression as the simple tramp.

The sledge grew more difficult to draw, though its weight was really
less and less: but in a mechanical way all joined hands in getting it
over masses of rock, or through cracks where at times it became wedged
in fast. For it could not be left behind, loaded as it was with the
links which held them to life.

And at last the brief day came to an end, when the shortest journey of
all had been made, little more than a mile along the narrow rift with
its often perpendicular