'I'm jiggered if I don't think they're a-laughin' at us,' he muttered, looking at the stars, 'and I don't wonder. It's been a pretty tough job gettin' here, but how we're goin' to get out beats me. Howsomdever, Dick, my lad, bed!--bed-rock it is, my hearty!' and, grumbling and growling, he poked his finger into his pipe, extinguished the ashes, and crawled under a corner of Towzer's robe. CHAPTER XXIII READING THE WILL A sudden rushing wind struck Snap upon the cheek, and he awoke; awoke with a smell of carrion in his nostrils and a dark cloud floating over his eyes. As he sprang to his feet it was gone, but the view that suddenly confronted him--the narrow bed on which he had slept, and the yawning abyss beneath--made him reel and stagger with horror. Recovering himself as his faculties came back from dreamland, he heard a harsh 'croak! croak!' and saw the cloud which had broken his slumbers floating, on wings which scarcely moved, round and round the summit, turning its ugly head enquiringly towards him every time it passed. 'You fiend!' he muttered, shaking his fist at the raven, 'I wonder, after the hundred years you've lived about this peak and its graveyards, that you don't know a live man from a dead one; perhaps that will teach you,' and as the bird came by again he hurled a lump of granite at it with an accuracy and energy which would not be denied. The stone caught the bird full, and sounded hollow on its great wing. For a moment it staggered, and two black feathers fluttered ever so slowly down, until it made Snap sick to watch them going, going, as if they never would stop; but the raven righted himself, and with a fierce croak sailed on out of sight. 'Sounded as if he was a cursing of you, didn't it, Snap?' said Wharton's voice at the boy's side; 'a nice old party he is! But I wish we had his wings.' 'Yes, Dick,' replied Snap, 'even without those two pen-feathers I knocked out of him.' 'If Warwolf had seen you do that,' remarked Wharton, 'he would never have been happy again, That bird is "Great Medicine" with the Blackfeet.' 'Great humbug,' retorted Snap indignantly. 'Just so, that's the way as I always translate it myself,' replied the foreman; 'but I say, I wonder if Warwolf got clear away?' 'I hope he did,' said Snap, 'I should like to see the poor old Cradle again.' 'What, that horse?' answered Dick; 'wal, if the chief didn't get clear away, I reckon neither you nor me will want any hoss again.' 'No, I suppose not, Dick,' replied Snap grimly; 'I wonder if these chaps realise what a corner we are in,' he added, pointing over his shoulder to his sleeping comrades. 'Frank may,' said Dick; 'I'm not rightly certain whether the young 'un understands anything yet.' 'What do you mean, Dick? you don't mean that he has gone off his head, do you?' replied Snap a little vaguely.