Page:Dave Porter in the Far North.djvu/275

Rh see if he couldn't bring down something in the way of game. He could get only some small birds and they lasted only one meal. Then he went out again, after an elk he had seen at a distance. That was when he took the tumble over the cliffs."

"Are you sure he wasn't killed?" asked Dave.

"I am sure of nothing, my lad. But I think the chances are he fell in the deep snow, or on some of the fir trees, and that that saved his life."

"What time was this yesterday?"

"About noon. After that we decided to come down here, and at the same time look for your father. Philip Lapham said he would remain, to look after Jackson, who was as yet too weak to walk. We left all our provisions up there and came down here as fast as we could—and here we are."

This was all Samuel Hausermann could tell, and Charles Davis corroborated his statement. Dave shook his head sadly.

"Even if my father wasn't killed by the tumble he took, maybe he was starved or frozen to death," he said to Roger.

"Hope for the best, Dave," was all the senator's son could answer.

The Norwegian guide, Bjornhof, had agreed to go back to the mountain top with a load of provisions. He had expected to go alone, but Dave said he would go also, to see if he could not find