Shorty stopped with a blissful sensation. He had worked his feet loose. He spread them and there was no restraint. The knot had slipped or something. Meantime the saplings creaked and complained of the burden they bore. Dawn came, finally, but it found Shorty still on the mule’s back. The mule was dozing. He had thrashed and slashed in vain for secure footing and had found none. Shorty, taking the hint, decided that it would be unwise to get off the mule’s back, especially since there seemed to be no bottom to the snow. The saplings creaked and protested louder than ever. Day, and the sun, brought Shorty courage. Besides, he was growing hungry. He slipped off, awkwardly, because of his tied hands, and he sank immediately. But he was too hungry to die just then. He rolled and in a minute felt hard ground under him. He got to his feet and pushed up through the snow crust and emerged, covered with sparkling crystals, three yards below the struggling mule. The mule looked at him in a startled way. “It’s just me!” explained Shorty. The mule, at that, laid his long ears back along his quivering neck, raised his hideous upper lip from yellowed teeth, opened his mouth, sucked in a huge breath and then blared forth a bloodcurdling clarion of recognition. The mighty hee haw echoed up and reverberated against the cliffs half a mile above, where the trail was. “Good gosh!” cried Shorty, his ear drums splitting as he ducked under the snow. When he came up again, from his knees, on which he had crouched, the mule eyed him again in astonishment. “It’s me, yuh fool!” And at that, in joyous enthusiasm, Rudolph laid back his velvety ears, bared his yellow teeth and sucking in plenty of air, gave Shorty another thundering salute. “My ears!” yelped Shorty, ducking. He stayed under, then, for a minute or two, while he heard the muffled rejoicings of the blatant jackass, and when the outburst of mule music had ceased, Shorty came up for air. Again the mule looked askance at him. “Yuh crazy fool,” blurted the shivering Shorty, as he essayed a step, only to sink into yielding snow, “it’s me.” And again Rudolph brayed his recognition. Then the spirit of the thing came upon Shorty. He had explored in all directions and found nothing but deep snow. Evidently he was marooned on a huge rock and hemmed in on all sides. There was no escape. He could not see the trail from where he was. Besides, there would be nobody on it unless it was the bandit, who, due to Lobo Loco’s sagacity, might have escaped the slide. And if the bandit was on the trail he wouldn’t care about aiding his late victim. No, nothing to do but perish, decided Shorty, and what could be nicer, under the circumstances, than passing out with the asinine trumpeting of a jackass as a funeral dirge?