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