ing that
biscuit-tin and carrying it to the far end yonder and emptying it."

"And bury the sledge and the food."

"No: we can get a great deal disposed of before we come to that. Look
here--I mean, feel here. We have plenty of room to stand up where we
are. Well, that means that we can raise the floor. So long as we have
room to lie down, that is all we want."

"Yes, I suppose so."

"After a while we must get out all the food we want and take it with us
in the tunnel we make higher and higher as we go."

"Yes, that sounds reasonable," said Abel thoughtfully. "We shall be
drawing the snow down and trampling it hard beneath our feet."

"And, I believe, be making a bigger chamber about us as we work up
towards the light."

"Keeping close to the face of the rock, too," said Abel, "will ensure
our having one side of our sloping tunnel safe. That can never cave
in."

"Well done, engineer!" cried Dallas laughingly. "Here were we thinking
last night of dying. Why, the very remembrance of the way in which
animals burrow has quite cheered me up."

"That and the thought that we may have to mine underground for our
gold," replied Abel. "Shall I begin?"

"No; you're weak yet, and it will be easier to clear away my workings."

Without another word the young man felt his way to the end of their
little hole, tapped the rock with the shovel, and then stood perfectly
still.

"What is it?" asked Abel.

"I was trying to make out where the air comes from, and I think I have
hit it. I shall try and slope up here."

Striking out with the shovel and trying to cut a square passage for his
ascent, he worked away for the next hour, the snow yielding to his
efforts much more freely than he had anticipated; and as he worked Abel
tried hard to keep up with him, filling the tin, bearing it to the other
end beyond the sledges, and piling up the snow, trampling down the loads
as he went on.

Twice over he offered to take his cousin's place; but Dallas worked on,
hour after hour, till both were compelled to give up from utter
exhaustion, and they lay down now in their greatly narrowed cave to eat.

This latter had its usual result, and almost simultaneously they fell
asleep.

How long they had been plunged in deep slumber, naturally, they could
not tell. Night and day were the same to them; and as Dallas said, from
the hunger they felt they might have been hibernating in a torpid state
for a week, for aught they knew.