Chapter 8. The Fight For Life

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_ CHAPTER EIGHT. THE FIGHT FOR LIFE

"Yes! Yes! What is it?" Somebody had spoken in the black darkness, but it was some minutes before Dallas Adams could realise the fact that the words came from his own lips.

Then he heard a faint whisper from somewhere close by, and he was this time wide awake, and knew that he was answering that whisper.

"Where am I? What place is this?"

The question had come to him in his sleep, and for a few moments, so familiar were the sounds, he felt that he must have the tubes of a phonograph to his ears, and he listening to the thin, weird, wiry tones of his cousin's voice.

Then, like a flash, all came back, and he knew not only that he had been asleep, but everything that had happened some time before.

"Bel, old lad," he said huskily, and he winced with pain as he tried to stretch out his left hand.

"Ah!" came again in the faint whisper, "That you, Dal?"

"Yes, yes. How are you now?"

"Then it isn't all a delirious dream?"

"No, no; we have been brought together almost miraculously."

"Thank God--thank God!" came feebly. "I thought I had been off my head. Have I been asleep?"

"Yes, and I fell asleep too. My wound made me feverish, and we must have been lying here ever so long in the dark."

"Your wound, Dal?"

"Yes; I had almost forgotten it in what we had to go through, but one of the scoundrels shot me. It is only a scratch, but my arm seems set fast."

"Ah! Do you think they were buried alive too?" came in an eager whisper.

"Who can say, old fellow? But never mind that. How do you feel? Think you can help me?"

"Tie up your wound?"

"No, no. Help me try and dig our way out."

"I think so. My head feels a bit light, but it's my throat that is bad--all swollen up so that I can only whisper."

"Never mind your throat so long as you can use your arms."

"Think we can dig our way out?"

Dallas uttered a little laugh.

"Why not?" he said. "There is a pick and shovel on my sledge."

"Ah, yes, and on mine too."

"We were out of heart last night," continued Dallas, encouragingly, "and in the scare thought we were done for. But we can breathe; we shall not suffer for want of food; the melted snow will give us drink; and once we can determine which way to dig, what is to prevent our finding our way to daylight again?"

"Our position," said Abel, in his faint whisper. "Where are we to put the snow we dig out?"

Dallas was silent for a few moments.

"Yes," he said at last; "that will be a difficulty, for we must not fill up this place. But never mind that for the present. We must eat and drink now, for we shall want all our strength. Pressed snow is almost like ice. Ah, here is the sledge--mine or yours. My head is too thick to tell which. Bel, lad, we are going to dig our way out, if it takes us a month."

"Yes," came rather more strongly; and the next minute Dallas Adams was feeling about the sledge for the tin which held the traveller's food.

It was hard work fumbling there in the dark, for parts of the sledge were pressed and wedged down by snow that was nearly as hard as ice; but others were looser, and by degrees he managed to get part of the tin free, when he started, for something touched his arm.

"Can I help you, Dal?"

"How you made me jump, lad! I don't know. Feel strong enough?"

"I think so; but I want to work. It's horrible lying there fancying the top of this hole is going to crumble down every time you move some of the snow."

"Lay hold here, then, and let's try and drag this tin out."

They took hold of it as well as their cramped position would allow, and tugged and tugged, feeling the tin case bend and grow more and more out of shape; but it would not come.

"No good," said Dallas. "I'll cut through the tin with my knife."

"But it's looser now. Let's have one more try."

"Very well.--Got hold?--Now then, both together."

They gave a sudden jerk, and fell backward with the once square tin case upon them, lying still and horrified, for there was a dull creaking and crushing noise as if the snow was being pressed down to fill up the vacancy they had made, and then _crick, crack_, sharply; there was the sound of breaking, as portions of the sledge gave way from the weight above.

Abel caught his cousin's hand to squeeze it hard, fully expecting that their last moments had come; but after a minute's agony the sounds ceased, and the prisoners breathed more freely.

"It's all right, Bel," said Dallas; "but it did sound rather creepy."

"Hah!" ejaculated Abel. "I thought--"

"Yes, so did I, old fellow; but it's a mistake to think at a time like this. We only frighten ourselves. Now then, let's see what we've got."

"See?" said Abel bitterly.

"Yes, with the tips of our fingers. It's all right, I tell you; rats and mice and rabbits don't make a fuss about being in burrows."

"They're used to it, Dal; we're not."

"Then let's get used to it, lad. I say, suppose we were getting gold here, instead of a biscuit-tin; we shouldn't make a fuss about being buried. Why, it's just what we should like."

"I suppose so," replied Abel.

"It's what we shall have to do, perhaps, by-and-by. This is a sort of lesson, and it will make the rest easy."

"If we get out."

"Get out? Pish! We shall get out soon. The sun and the rain will thaw us out if we don't dig a way. Hullo! The lid's off the tin, and the biscuits are half of them in the snow. Never mind. Set to work and eat, while I pick up all I can find. I'm hungry. Peck away, lad, and think you're a squirrel eating your winter store. I say, who would think one could be so warm and snug surrounded by snow?"

Abel made no reply, but tried to eat, as he heard the cracking and crunching going on at his side. It was hard work, though, and he went on slowly, for the effort to swallow was accompanied by a good deal of pain, and he ceased long before Dallas gave up.

"How are you getting on?" the latter said in an encouraging tone.

"Badly."

"Yes, they are dry; but wait till we get our gold. We'll have a banquet to make up for this. By Jove!"

"What is it?"

"I forgot about your throat. It hurts?"

"Horribly. But I can manage."

Dallas said no more, but thought a great deal; and after placing the tin aside he turned to the sledge to try whether he could not get at the shovel bound to it somewhere, for the package was pressed all on one side by the snow.

After a long search he found one corner of the blade, and drawing his big sharp knife, he set to work chipping and digging with the point, with the result that in about an hour he dragged out the tool.

"Now," he said, "we can get to work turn and turn. The thing is, where to begin, for I have not seen the slightest glimmer of light."

"No; we must be buried very deep."

"Say pretty deep. Which way shall we try?"

"Up by the rock, and slope upward where the air seems to come."

"That's right. Just what I thought. And, look here, Bel, there's room for a couple of cartloads of snow or more about us here, and my plan is this: one will dig upward, and of course the snow will fall down of its own weight. As it comes down the other must keep filling that biscuit-tin and carrying it to the far end yonder and emptying it."

"And bury the sledge and the food."

"No: we can get a great deal disposed of before we come to that. Look here--I mean, feel here. We have plenty of room to stand up where we are. Well, that means that we can raise the floor. So long as we have room to lie down, that is all we want."

"Yes, I suppose so."

"After a while we must get out all the food we want and take it with us in the tunnel we make higher and higher as we go."

"Yes, that sounds reasonable," said Abel thoughtfully. "We shall be drawing the snow down and trampling it hard beneath our feet."

"And, I believe, be making a bigger chamber about us as we work up towards the light."

"Keeping close to the face of the rock, too," said Abel, "will ensure our having one side of our sloping tunnel safe. That can never cave in."

"Well done, engineer!" cried Dallas laughingly. "Here were we thinking last night of dying. Why, the very remembrance of the way in which animals burrow has quite cheered me up."

"That and the thought that we may have to mine underground for our gold," replied Abel. "Shall I begin?"

"No; you're weak yet, and it will be easier to clear away my workings."

Without another word the young man felt his way to the end of their little hole, tapped the rock with the shovel, and then stood perfectly still.

"What is it?" asked Abel.

"I was trying to make out where the air comes from, and I think I have hit it. I shall try and slope up here."

Striking out with the shovel and trying to cut a square passage for his ascent, he worked away for the next hour, the snow yielding to his efforts much more freely than he had anticipated; and as he worked Abel tried hard to keep up with him, filling the tin, bearing it to the other end beyond the sledges, and piling up the snow, trampling down the loads as he went on.

Twice over he offered to take his cousin's place; but Dallas worked on, hour after hour, till both were compelled to give up from utter exhaustion, and they lay down now in their greatly narrowed cave to eat.

This latter had its usual result, and almost simultaneously they fell asleep.

How long they had been plunged in deep slumber, naturally, they could not tell. Night and day were the same to them; and as Dallas said, from the hunger they felt they might have been hibernating in a torpid state for a week, for aught they knew.

They ate heartily of the biscuits, Abel's throat being far less painful, and once more the dull sound of the shovel began in a hollow, muffled way.

A couple of hours must have passed, at the end of which time so much snow had accumulated at the foot of the sloping shaft that Dallas was compelled to descend and help his fellow-prisoner.

"This will not do," he said. "We must get out some more provisions before we bury the sledges entirely."

"There is enough biscuit to keep us alive for a couple of days," replied Abel. "Let us chance getting out, and not stop to encumber ourselves with more provisions."

"It is risky, but I fancy that I am getting nearer the air. Go up and try yourself."

Abel went up the sloping tunnel to the top with ease, Dallas having clipped steps out of the ice, and after breathing hard for a few minutes the younger man came down.

"You must be getting nearer the top. I can breathe quite freely there."

"Yes, and the snow is not so hard."

"Chance it, then, and go on digging," said Abel eagerly. "I will get the snow away. I can manage so much more easily if I may put it down anywhere. It gets trampled with my coming and going."

Dallas crept up to his task once more and toiled away, till, utterly worn out, both made another meal and again slept.

Twice over this was repeated, and all idea of time was lost; still they worked on, cheered by the feeling that they must be nearing liberty. However, the plan arranged proved impossible in its entirety, the rock bulging out in a way which drove the miner to entirely alter the direction of his sap. But the snow hour after hour grew softer, and the difficulty of cutting less, till all at once, as Dallas struck with his spade, it went through into a cavity, and a rush of cool air came into the sloping tunnel.

"Heavenly!" cried the worker, breathing freely now. "I'll slip down, Bel. You must come up and have a mouthful of this."

He descended to the bottom, and Abel took the spade and went to his place.

"The shovel goes through quite easily here," he said excitedly.

"Yes, and what is beyond?" shouted Dallas. "Can you see daylight?"

"No; all is black as ink. It must be a hole in the snow. We must get into it, for the air comes quite pure and fresh, and that means life and hope."

In his excitement he struck out with the shovel twice, and had drawn it back to strike again, when there was a dull heavy crack, and he felt himself borne sidewise and carried along, with the snow rising up and covering his face.

The next minute, as he vainly strove to get higher, the movement ceased, and he felt himself locked in the embrace of the snow, while his breathing stopped.

Only for a moment, before the hardening crystal which surrounded his head dropped away, and a rush of pure air swept over him and seemed to bring back life.

Then the sliding movement entirely ceased, and he wildly shouted his cousin's name.

His voice echoed from somewhere above, telling him that, though a prisoner, he was free down to the shoulders, though his arms were pinned.

But there was no other reply to the call, and he turned sick and faint with the knowledge that Dallas must be once more buried deep, and far below.

Around all was black darkness, and in his agony another desperate effort was made; but the snow had moulded itself around him nearly to the neck, and he could not stir a limb. _

Read next: Chapter 9. Under Pressure

Read previous: Chapter 7. Fevered Dreams

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