nd another in the direction where his companions were tearing out the
icy snow.

The great drops stood on the big Cornishman's face as he toiled away,
enlarging the hole down beside Abel Wray, and all the time he kept up a
cheery rattle of talk about how useful a tool a pick was, and how the
lad he was helping--and whom he kept on calling "my son"--ought to have
brought one of the same kind for the gold working to come; but the look
in his big grey eyes looked darker and more sombre as he saw a grey
aspect darkening the countenance of the prisoner--the air he had seen
before in the faces of men whom he had helped to rescue after a fall of
roof in one of the home mines.

"He'll be a goner before I get him out if I don't mind," he said to
himself, and the pick rattled, and the icy snow flashed as he struck
here and there, only ceasing now and then to stoop and throw out some
big lump which he had detached.

"Better fun this, my son," he said with a laugh, "if all this was rich
ore to be powdered up. Fancy, you know--gold a hundredweight to the
ton. Rather different to our quartz rock at home, with just a sprinkle
of tin that don't pay the labour.

"Hah!" he cried at last, from where he stood in the well-like shaft he
had cut, and threw down his pick on the snow. "Now you ought to come."

He rose, took hold of Abel as he spoke, and found that his calculations
were right, for very little effort was required to draw him forward from
out of the snowy mould in which he was belted; and the next minute the
poor fellow lay insensible upon the snow, with his rescuer kneeling by
him, once more trickling spirit between the blue lips.

"Can't swallow," muttered the man, and he screwed up the flask, and set
to work rubbing his patient vigorously, regardless of what was going on
beneath the rocky wall, till there was a loud cheer, and his two
companions came towards him, each holding by and shaking hands heartily
with Dallas Adams. For they had mined down to where they could meet him
as he toiled upward to escape; and the first words of Dallas, when he
was drawn out hot and exhausted, were a question about his cousin.

The pair set at liberty joined in now in the endeavour to resuscitate
the poor fellow lying on the snow. Their sledge was unpacked, double
blankets laid down, and the sufferer lifted upon them, friction
liberally applied to the limbs, and at last they had the satisfaction of
seeing him unclose his eyes, to st