Page:Lost with Lieutenant Pike (1919).djvu/219

 everybody worked; the canyon echoed to the shouts and blows and frenzied, frightened snorting.

Suddenly the yellow pony's neck-thong snapped he recoiled threshing, head over heels, before Stub might dodge from him; and down they went, together, clear into the river. But Stub never felt the final crash. On his way he saw a burst of stars, then he plunged into night and kept right on plunging until he woke up.

He had landed. No, he was still going. That is, the snow and cliffs at either side were moving, while he sat propped and bewildered, dizzily watching them.

His head throbbed. He put his hand to it, and felt a bandage. But whose bowed back was that, just before? And what was that noise, of crunching and rasping? Ah! He was on a sledge—he was stowed in the baggage upon a sledge, and was being hauled—over the ice and snow—through the canyon—by—by

Freegift Stout! For the man doing the hauling turned his face, and was Freegift Stout!

Well, well! Freegift halted, and let the sled run on to him. He shouted also; they had rounded a curve and there was another loaded sled, and a man for it; and they, too, stopped.