ead was as rigidly fixed as in a vise; he could move his eyes, his
chin--no more. Only his right arm was partly free. "You must help us out
of this," he said to it. But he could not get it from under the heavy
timber athwart his chest, nor move it outward more than six inches at
the elbow.

Searing was not seriously injured, nor did he suffer pain. A smart rap
on the head from a flying fragment of the splintered post, incurred
simultaneously with the frightfully sudden shock to the nervous system,
had momentarily dazed him. His term of unconsciousness, including the
period of recovery, during which he had had the strange fancies, had
probably not exceeded a few seconds, for the dust of the wreck had not
wholly cleared away as he began an intelligent survey of the situation.

With his partly free right hand he now tried to get hold of the beam
that lay across, but not quite against, his breast. In no way could he
do so. He was unable to depress the shoulder so as to push the elbow
beyond that edge of the timber which was nearest his knees; failing in
that, he could not raise the forearm and hand to grasp the beam. The
brace that made an angle with it downward and backward prevented him
from doing anything in that direction, and between it and his body the
space was not half so wide as the length of his forearm. Obviously he
could not get his hand under the beam nor over it; the hand could not,
in fact, touch it at all. Having demonstrated his inability, he
desisted, and began to think whether he could reach any of the debris
piled upon his legs.

In surveying the mass with a view to determining that point, his
attention was arrested by what seemed to be a ring of shining metal
immediately in front of his eyes. It appeared to him at first to
surround some perfectly black substance, and it was somewhat more than a
half-inch in diameter. It suddenly occurred to his mind that the
blackness was simply shadow and that the ring was in fact the muzzle of
his rifle protruding from the pile of debris. He was not long in
satisfying himself that this was so--if it was a satisfaction. By
closing either eye he could look a little way along the barrel--to the
point where it was hidden by the rubbish that held it. He could see the
one side, with the corresponding eye, at apparently the same angle as
the other side with the other eye. Looking with the right eye, the
weapon seemed to be directed at a point to the left of his head, and