in dealing erratic blows with his spent strength, until the
ledge hung dangerously over him. As it was, he reeled and swayed and
struck again, and staggered back to gather strength for another blow,
leaning on his pick, and this saved him from death; for, during the
instant's pause, the whole mass fell crashing in front of him, and he
went down with it, stunned and bleeding, but not crushed.

Larry Kildene breakfasted and worked about the cabin and the shed half
the day before he began to wonder at the young man's absence. He fell
to grumbling that Harry had not fed and groomed his horse, and did the
work himself. Noon came, and Amalia looked in his face anxiously as he
entered and Harry not with him.

"How is it that Mr. 'Arry have not arrive all this day?"

"Oh, he's mooning somewhere. Off on a tramp I suppose."

"Has he then his gun? No?"

"No, but he's been about. He cleared away all the snow, and I saw he
had been over to the fall." Amalia turned pale as the shrewd old man's
eyes rested on her. "He came back early, though, for I saw footprints
both ways."

"I hope he comes soon, for we have the good soup to-day, of the kind
Mr. 'Arry so well likes."

But he did not come soon, and it was with much misgiving that Larry
set out to search for him. Finding no trails leading anywhere except
the twice trodden one to the fall, he naturally turned into the mine
and followed along the path, torch in hand, hallooing jovially as he
went, but his voice only returned to him, reverberating hollowly.
Then, remembering the ledge where they had last worked, and how he had
meant to put in props before cutting away any more, he ran forward,
certain of calamity, and found his young friend lying where he had
fallen, the blood still oozing from a cut above the temple, where it
had clotted.

For a moment Larry stood aghast, thinking him dead, but quickly seeing
the fresh blood, he lifted the limp body and bound up the wound, and
then Harry opened his eyes and smiled in Larry's face. The big man in
his joy could do nothing but storm and scold.

"Didn't I tell ye to do no more here until we'd the props in? I'm
thinking you're a fool, and that's what you are. If I didn't tell ye
we needed them here, you could have seen it for yourself--and here
you've cut away all underneath. What did you do it for? I say!"
Tenderly he gathered Harry in his arms and lifted him from the debris
and loosened rock. "Now! Are you hurt anywhere else? Do