rible
features of their enemy, about which the dog was sniffing in a puzzled
way. But at last he turned to where Tregelly was waving the great
firebrand, which shed a bright light around.

"It was his den, Master Dallas," growled Tregelly. "Look here, this was
all covered with snow last night when we lit the fire, and it's all
melted away. Why, only look, my son; he spent all his time trying to do
for us, and what's he done?--he's saved all our lives. Flour, bacon,
coffee. What's in that bag? Sugar. Why, this is all his plunder as
he's robbed from fellows' huts. There's his gun, too, and his pistol.
But what a place to choose to live in all alone! You'd ha' thought he'd
have had a shelter. Here, I'm not _going_ to die just yet."

A wave of energy seemed to inspire the great fellow, who picked up the
rug that had sheltered him during the night, and gave Dallas a nod.

"When a man dies," he said solemnly, "he wipes out all his debts. We
don't owe him nothing neither now."

As Tregelly spoke he drew the rug carefully over the figure lying there,
and the next minute set to work to make the fire blaze higher, while
Dallas, with half-numbed hands, tried to help him by filling the billy
with pieces of ice, setting it in the glowing embers, and refilling it
as the solid pieces rapidly melted down.

They were both too busy and eager to prepare a meal from the life-saving
provender they had so strangely found, to pay any heed to Abel.

"Let him rest, my son, till breakfast's ready; he's terribly weak, poor
lad. Mind, too, when we do rouse him up, not to say a word about what's
lying under that rug. I'll pitch some wood across it so as he shan't
notice before we wake him up."

Dallas nodded, and with a strange feeling of renewed hope for which he
could not account, he worked away; for it seemed the while that the
store of provisions they had found would do no more for them than
prolong their weary existence in the wild for two or three weeks.

Tregelly brought forward more wood from the shelter they had formed; the
fire burned more brightly; bacon was frying, and the fragrance of coffee
and hot cake was being diffused, when, just as Dallas was thinking of
awakening his cousin to the change in their state of affairs, a hoarse
cry aroused him and made him look sharply at where, unnoticed, Abel had
risen to his knees; and there, in the full light of the fire, he could
be seen pointing.

"We're too late, my son,