_ CHAPTER TEN. A HUMAN FOSSIL
"You be blowed!" cried a bluff cheery voice. "Eckers be jiggered! Think I don't know the difference between a hecker an' a nail?"
"No."
"Don't I? I heered some one holloa, and as I don't believe in ghosts, I say some one must be here. Ahoy! where are you, mate?"
The speaker turned from his two companions, who were dragging the sledge up the slope of the snow-fall, and then smote one thigh heavily with the palm of his great hand.
"I'm blest!" he shouted, as he ran a few steps and dropped on one knee by Abel's head. "No, no; don't give in now, my lad. Hold up, and we'll soon have you out o' this pickle. Here, out with shovels and pecks, lads. Here's a director of the frozen meat company caught in his own trap. Specimen o' Horsestralian mutton froze hard and all alive O. Here, mate, take a sup o' this."
The speaker unscrewed the top of a large flask, and held it to Abel's lips, trickling a few drops between them as the head fell back and the poor fellow nearly swooned away.
"That's your sort. Never mind its being strong. I'd put some snow in it, but you've had enough of that. Coming round, you are. What's it been--a heavy 'lanche?"
"Yes, yes," gasped Abel; "but never mind me."
"What! Want to be cut out carefully as a curiosity--fly-in-amber sort of a fellow?"
"No, no--my cousin! Buried alive, man. Hark! you can hear him digging underground." The great sturdy fellow, who bore some resemblance to ruddy-haired Beardy, sufficient in the distance and under the circumstances of his excitement to warrant Abel's misapprehension, stared at the snow prisoner for a few moments as if he believed him to be insane.
"He's off his 'ead, mates, with fright," he said in a low voice to his companions, who were freeing the shovels; but Abel heard him.
"No, no," he cried wildly. "I know what I am saying. Listen."
The great, frank-looking fellow laid his ear to the snow, and leaped up again.
"He's right," he roared excitedly. "There's some one below--how many were with you, my lad?"
"Only my cousin--we were buried together--but don't talk--dig, dig!"
"Yes, both of you, slip into it. Just here," cried the big man, "while I get the pick and fetch this one out."
"No, no, not there," cried Abel frantically. "Dig yonder, there by the rock wall."
"What, right over yonder? Sound's here."
"Go and listen there," cried Abel.
"Can you hold out?"
"Yes, yes; hours now. Save my cousin; for heaven's sake, quick!"
One of the men had gone quickly to the rocky wall, knelt down and listened, and shouted back.
"He's right," cried this latter. "You can hear some one moleing away quite plain."
"Dig, dig!" shouted Abel, and two of the new-comers began at once, while the leader of the party went to their sledge and dragged a sharp-pointed miner's pick from where it was lashed on.
"No, no," cried Abel imploringly, as the man returned to his side; "save him."
"You keep quiet, my lad. I'm a-going to save you."
"But I can breathe," cried Abel.
"So can he, or he couldn't go on working. Two heavy chaps is quite enough to be tramping over his head. Don't want my sixteen stone to tread it hard. Have a drop more o' this 'fore I begin?"
"No, no! It is burning my mouth still."
"Good job too: put some life into you, just when you looked as if you was going to bye-bye for good. Now then, don't you be skeart. I know how to use a pick; been used to it in the Corn'll tin-mines. I could hit anywhere to half a shadow round you without taking the skin off. I'll soon have you out."
He began at once, driving the pick into the compressed snow; but after the first half-dozen strokes, seeing how the fragments flew, he took off his broad-brimmed felt hat and laid it against Abel's head as a screen. Then commencing again he made the chips fly in showers which glittered in the sunshine, as he walked backward, cutting a narrow trench with the sharp-pointed implement, taking the prisoner's head as a centre and keeping about thirty inches distant, and so on, round and round till the channel he cut was as deep as the arm of the pick, and quite clear.
"Feel bad?" he said, pausing for a few moments.
"No, no," cried Abel. "How are they getting on?"
"Better'n me. If we don't look sharp your mate--what did you say he was--cousin?--'ll be out first."
"I hope so," sighed Abel.
"Now then, shut your eyes, my son," cried the miner. "I'm going to cut from you now. Lean your head away as much as you can. I've cut the tire and felloes of the wheel; your head's the nave; now I'm going to cut the spokes."
_Click, click, click_, went the pick.
"Don't you flinch, my son," cried the man. "I won't hit you."
Abel had winced several times over, for the bright steel tool had whizzed by him dangerously close; but he grew more confident now, and, as much as he could for the sheltering hat, he watched the wonderful progress made by his rescuer, who at the end of a few minutes had deeply cut two more channels after the fashion of the spokes running from the centre to the periphery of the imaginary wheel.
After this, a few well-directed blows brought out the intervening snow in great pieces, and upon these being cleared out another clever blow broke the gathered snow right up to the young man's left arm, leaving seven or eight inches below the shoulder clear.
"That's your sort, my son," cried the miner cheerily, chatting away, but keeping the pick flying the while. "The best way to have got you out would have been with a tamping iron, making a nice hole, dropping in a dynamite cartridge, and popping it off. That would have sent this stuff flying, only it might have blowed you all to bits, which wouldn't have been pleasant. This is the safest way. How are you gettin' on, mates?"
"All right. He's 'live enough, Bob."
"Work away, then. Look here, my son, I did think of spoking you all round, but I'm beginning to think it'll be better to keep on at you this side, and then take you out of your mould sidewise like. There won't be so much cutting to do, and you'll have one side clear sooner. What do you say?"
"I want you to go and help your companions," replied Abel faintly.
"Then I'm sorry I can't oblige you," cried the man cheerily. "Look at that now! This fresh stuff hasn't had time to get very hard. After a few thawings and freezings it would be like clear solid ice. It's pretty firm, but--there's another. Soon let daylight down by your ribs. I want to get that hand and arm clear first so as you can hold the hat to shade your face."
And all the time he chatted away, coolly enough, the pick was wielded so dexterously, every blow being given to such purpose, that he cut out large pieces of the compressed snow and hooked them out of the rapidly growing hole.
It was the work of a man who had toiled for years amongst the granite deep down in the bowels of the earth, and experience had taught him the value of striking so as to save labour; but all the same the task was a long one, and it grew more difficult the deeper down he went.
"'Bliged to make the hole bigger, my son," he said; "but you hold up; I sha'n't be long now. I say, how deep down do you go? Are you a six-footer?"
"No, I'm only about five feet eight," said Abel, whose face looked terribly pained and drawn.
"Aren't you now?" said the man coolly. "I should ha' thought by the look of your head and chest that you were taller. Been a longer job with me. I'm over six foot three, and good measure. There, now that arm's clear, aren't it? Can you lift it out?"
Abel shook his head sadly.
"There is no use in it," he said faintly.
"Might ha' knowed it. Bit numb like with the cold. But you keep a good heart, and I'll have you out. It's only a bit o' work, and no fear of caving in on us. Just child's play like. There's one arm clear, and a bit of your side, and the rest'll soon follow."
The man paused in the act of getting the the top off the spirit-flask, and shouted to his companions, "Hoi! Here, quick, lads, and help me here. My one's going out."
For a ghastly look crossed Abel's face, his eyes grew fixed, as they half-closed, and his head fell over on one side. _