To Win or to Die | Page 5

his handkerchief, he folded it into a bandage, and with one hand and his teeth contrived to bind and tie it tightly round his wound so as to stop the bleeding, which was beginning to cause a strange sensation of faintness.
He had been hot with exertion when he stopped, but now the feeling of exhilaration caused by his escape died out as rapidly as the heat. A deadly chill attacked mind and body, for his position seemed crushing. It was horrible beyond bearing, and for the moment he was ready to throw himself down in his despair. The intense cold would, he knew, soon bring on a sensation of drowsiness, which would result in sleep, and there would be no pain--nothing but rest from which there would be no awakening; and then--
Then the coward feeling was driven back in a brave effort--a last struggle for life.
The cold was intense, the darkness thicker than ever, for the sides of the ravine had been closing in till only a narrow strip of faintly marked sky was visible, while at every few steps taken slowly the poor fellow stumbled over some inequality and nearly fell.
At times he struck himself heavily, but he was beyond feeling pain, and in his desperation these hindrances acted merely as spurs to fresh effort, for he was on the way to safety. At any minute he felt that he might catch sight of another gleam of light, the camp fire of some other adventurer, and he knew that some of those on the way to the great Eldorado must be men who would help and even protect a fellow-creature in his dire state of peril.
But he knew that this intense feeling of energy could not last, that he was rapidly growing weaker, and that ere many minutes had elapsed he would once more stumble and fall, and this time the power to rise again would have passed away.
Was it too late to return to his enemies and make an appeal for his life? he asked himself at last. They might show him mercy, and life was so sweet.
But as these thoughts flickered through his brain in the half delirium fast deadening his power of thinking coherently, he once more saw the scene by the fire, and the faces of the three scoundrels stood out clearly with that relentless look, that cruel bestial glare of the eye, which told him that an appeal would but hasten his end.
"Better fall into the hands of God than men like them," he groaned, and setting his teeth hard he tottered on a few yards farther, with the snow growing less deep, the ground more stony.
Then the end came sooner than he expected, for his feet caught against something stretched across his way, and he fell heavily, uttering a cry of horror as he struggled to his knees.
For it was no block of stone, no tree-trunk torn from some shelf in the precipice above; he grasped the fact in an instant that he had tripped over a sledge similar to his own, to fall headlong upon the ghastly evidence of what was to be his own fate; for stiff and cold in the shallow snow, his fingers had come upon the body of some unfortunate treasure-seeker, and as, half-wild with horror, he forced himself to search with his hands to discover whether some spark of life might yet be burning, it was to find that whoever it was must have laid calmly down in his exhaustion, clasping his companion to his breast to give and receive the warmth that might save both their lives.
Vain effort. The man's breast was still for ever, and the faithful dog that had nestled closely with his muzzle in his master's neck was stiff and stark.
"God help me!" groaned the adventurer, clasping his hands and letting them fall softly on the dead; "is this the ending of my golden dream?"
CHAPTER THREE.
IN THE DARK.
The horrible chill of impending death, the bright light of reason, and the intense desire to live, roused the half-stunned adventurer to action.
Die? Like that? No!--when salvation was offered to him in this way.
It was horrible, but it was for life. There, close by him, slightly powdered with snow, was the unfortunate's sledge, and in an instant he was tearing at the rope which bound its load to the framework.
He could hardly believe his good fortune, for as the rope fell from the packages the first thing he set free was a fur-lined coat, possibly one which the dead man was too much exhausted to assume.
Suffering keenly from the cold, this was put on at once; and then, continuing the search, it was to find that a rifle was bound along one side, balanced by tools on the other. Then there were blankets and stores similar,