ater he emerged, rifle in hand.

High up on a shoulder of the mountain, hundreds of feet above the cabin,
sharply outlined against the sky, and bathed in the full glory of the
setting sun, a mountain-goat, with immensely thick hair of snowy white,
and sharp black horns, stood as motionless as though carved from marble.
Blinded by the sunlight, and believing himself to be surrounded by a
solitude untenanted by enemies, he saw not the quietly moving figures in
the dim shadows beneath him.

Twice did Phil raise his rifle, and twice did he lower it, so tremulous
was he with excitement, and a knowledge that four human lives depended
on the result of his shot. The third time he took a quick aim and fired.
As the report echoed sharply from the beetling cliffs, the stricken
animal gave a mighty leap straight out into space, and came whirling
downward like a great white bird with broken wings. He struck twice, but
bounded off each time, and finally lay motionless, buried in the snow at
the very foot of the mountain that had been his home.

"Seeing as how we hain't got no fire nor no matches I reckon we'll eat
our meat raw like the Huskies," said Jalap Coombs, dryly, a little
later, as they began to skin and cut up the goat.

"Whew!" ejaculated Phil. "I never thought of that but I know how to make
a fire with the powder from a cartridge, if one of you can furnish a bit
of cotton cloth."

"It seems a pity to waste a cartridge," said Serge, "when we haven't but
three or four left, and a single one has just done so much for us. I
think I can get fire in a much more economical way."

"How?" queried Phil.

"Ye won't find no brimstone nor yet feathers here," suggested Jalap
Coombs, with a shake of his head.

"Never mind," laughed Serge; "you two keep on cutting up the goat, and
by the time your job is completed I think I can promise that mine will
be." So saying, Serge entered the cabin and closed the door.

In a pile of rubbish he had noticed several small pieces of wood, and a
quantity of very dry botanical specimens, some of which bore fluffy
seed-vessels that could be used as tinder. He selected a bit of soft
pine, and worked a hole in it with the point of his knife. Next he
whittled out a thick pencil of the hardest wood he could find, sharpened
one end and rounded the other. In a block of hard wood he dug a cavity,
into which the rounded top of the pencil would fit. He found a section
of barrel hoop, and strung it very