“Hello!”

He started violently.

Had he really heard that, or was imagination playing tricks with echo?

“Colonel!”

“Where the devil——­”

A man’s head appeared out of the sky.

“Got the rope?”

Words indistinguishable floated down—­the head withdrawn—­silence.  The Boy waited a very long time, but he stamped his feet, and kept his blood in motion.  The light was very grey when the head showed again at the sky-line.  He couldn’t hear what was shouted down, and it occurred to him, even in his huge predicament, that the Colonel was “giving him hot air” as usual, instead of a life-line.  Down the rope came, nearer, and stopped about fifteen feet over his head.

“Got the axe?  Let her down.”

* * * * *

The night was bright with moonlight when the Boy stood again on the top of the bluff.

“Humph!” says the Colonel, with agreeable anticipation; “you’ll be glad to camp for a few days after this, I reckon.”

“Reckon I won’t.”

* * * * *

In their colossal fatigue they slept the clock round; their watches run down, their sense of the very date blurred.  Since the Colonel had made the last laconic entry in the journal—­was it three days or two—­or twenty?

In spite of a sensation as of many broken bones, the Boy put on the Colonel’s snow-shoes, and went off looking along the foot of the cliff for his own.  No luck, but he brought back some birch-bark and a handful of willow-withes, and set about making a rude substitute.

Before they had despatched breakfast the great red moon arose, so it was not morning, but evening.  So much the better.  The crust would be firmer.  The moon was full; it was bright enough to travel, and travel they must.

“No!” said the Colonel, with a touch of his old pompous authority, “we’ll wait awhile.”

The Boy simply pointed to the flour-bag.  There wasn’t a good handful left.

They ate supper, studiously avoiding each other’s eyes.  In the background of the Boy’s mind:  “He saved my life, but he ran no risk....  And I saved his.  We’re quits.”  In the Colonel’s, vague, insistent, stirred the thought, “I might have left him there to rot, half-way up the precipice.  Oh, he’d go! And he’d take the sled!  No!” His vanished strength flowed back upon a tide of rage.  Only one sleeping-bag, one kettle, one axe, one pair of snow-shoes ... one gun!  No, by the living Lord! not while I have a gun.  Where’s my gun?  He looked about guiltily, under his lowered lids.  What?  No!  Yes!  It was gone!  Who packed at the last camp?  Why, he—­himself, and he’d left it behind.  “Then it was because I didn’t see it; the Boy took care I shouldn’t see it!  Very likely he buried it so that I shouldn’t see it!  He—­yes—­if I refuse to go on, he——­”