he dragged
away at the load. "At last!" he cried, as he reached the door and cast
off the leathern loop from across his breast. "Here, Bel, ahoy! ahoy!
ahoy! Hot rolls and _coffee_! Breakfast, bacon, and tinned tongue!
Banquets and tuck out! Wake up, you lazy beggar! you dog! you--"

He was going to say "bear," but a horrible chill of dread attacked him,
and he turned faint and staggered back, nearly falling over his loaded
sledge.

"Bah! coward! fool!" he cried angrily, and he looked sharply round, to
see shaft fires in the distance; but there was no hut within half a
mile. "What nonsense!" he muttered. "There can't be anything wrong.
Got short of food, and gone to one of the neighbours."

Nerving himself, he tried to open the door.

But it was fast, and, as he could see from a means contrived by
themselves for fastening the door from outside when they went away
hunting or shooting, it had not been secured by one who had left the
place.

In an instant, realising this, he grew frantic, and without stopping to
think more, he ran round to the side by the shaft, caught up a piece of
fir-trunk some six or seven feet long, and ran back, poised it for a few
moments over his head, and then dashed it, battering-ram fashion, with
all his might against the rough fir-wood door, just where the bar went
across, loosening it so that he was able to insert one end of the piece
of timber, using it now as a lever; and with one wrench he forced the
door right open.

CHAPTER TWENTY SIX.

TREGELLY'S IDEA OF A GOLD TRAP.

Dropping the piece of wood, he dashed into the dark hut, to find that
the rush of wind from the suddenly opened door had started the embers in
the middle of the floor flickering in a dim lambent flame, just enough
to show him that the barrel table had been knocked over, the boxes used
for seats driven here and there, the bed occupied by his cousin dragged
away, the boards lifted, and the earth underneath it torn up, while Abel
was lying face downward close up to the remains of their store of wood.

It was all in one comprehensive glance that he had seen this, and it
seemed still to be passing panorama-like across the retina of his eyes,
when the faint flame died out and he dropped upon his knees beside the
prostrate man.

"Oh, Bel, lad," he groaned; "what have I done? I oughtn't to have left
you. Bel, old man, speak to me. God help me! He can't be dead!"

His hands were at his cousin's breast to