Page:They who walk in the wilds, (IA theywhowalkinwil00robe).pdf/199

 sound of human voices. Instantly jamming on his cap, and snatching up his rifle and snow-shoes, he dived through the snow, crashed through the branches of the bush, and struggled, spluttering and blowing, to the top of the hole. Before he could get the snow out of his eyes, his ears were greeted with a cry of "Well, I'll be damned! Here he is!"

Two of the "hands" from the camp, Long Jackson and Baldy Davis, grinning broadly with relief through the icicles on their moustaches, and steaming from their nostrils like locomotives, stood before him.

"What's been the matter, Mac?" demanded Baldy Davis.

"Got lost, like a damn fool," answered McLaggan. "Fell in a hole. Broke my snow-shoes. Thank God you've come. But what fetched you along this way?"

"The Boss wanted you to see to something or other for him at the settlement, and phoned in to Curtis's last night. When they said you hadn't turned up, he knowed something was wrong. So he sent Long Jackson an' me out on yer trail afore daylight this mornin', in a hurry; an' you bet we've done some travellin'."

"Thought we'd find you stiff," broke in Jackson. "But you don't look dead. What you been doin'?"