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 I am proud of him. He will be all right."

For three hours all went well and the young man and the dog trudged steadily down the mountain side. It was rather bad walking as the track had not been broken. This was especially so in places where it had drifted badly. Some of the way the road was entirely bare, but in other places the drifts were two and three feet deep. It was not very cold, but the wind was keen and it had a biting edge. Had it not been for the plight of his family Richard Henderson would rather have enjoyed this night tramp.

But when they had covered five miles of the distance to the village the unexpected happened, as it is always liable to. The road here was very steep, with a precipitous drop of several hundred feet on one side, and a dark woods on the other. Richard was just congratulating himself on how well they were getting along when he came to an icy place in the road.

The ice was covered with a coating of an