It was quickly and successfully done, and he did not make a fuss. He only closed his eyes at the last and set his teeth on that pale under lip until it bled. And afterwards he rested so motionless that she gave him another draught from the flask. Then finally he was able to sit up and examine that injured leg. It was broken in two places, he said; at the ankle and midway to the knee. There was too, he noticed now, something wrong with that left side; probably a fractured rib. It was work for a good surgeon, yes, but nothing to worry over. And he would have a look at that slide, right away, and see what the possibilities were of getting down. He worked his way to the rim of the ledge and she moved with him, watching his face; every shadow of pain that crossed it brought the anguish springing to her eyes. He raised his head, propping it on his hand, his elbow on the rocks, and his clear glance swept the fallen trees, and then more slowly the pitch stretching like smooth roadway between. Her eyes moved from him to the incline and back to his face. "Colonel is down there in those standing alders," she said. "Could we risk him anywhere on the slide?" "No." He shook his head. "No, my only chance is to coast." "To coast? You mean"—and quick understanding leaped in her face—"you want a sled. There’s a strip of bark down there, you can see it, where that piece of granite struck the cedar; it ought to make a good toboggan." "The best kind," he answered, "if you can find some one to bring it up." His glance came back from the slide while he spoke, but it moved no higher than the rim of the barricade. It had stopped raining and a shaft of sunlight, piercing the mist, flashed on a fragment of rock. He reached and took it, turning it in his hands slowly, to catch the play of colors. Then his eyes swept the splintered ore that spilled over the rampart, and he swung himself a little, starting up, though he was forced to sink back directly, in an endeavor to see the ledge overhead. Finally his gaze met hers. "It looks like my lost prospect." His voice vibrated a little; his face had grown suddenly young, boyish, and the hope in it brought an answering light to her own. "Here are the same traces of free gold, the rarest find in the world, with this deposit of copper; and just a nice showing of silver. But I could have sworn that outcropping was at least a mile from here." "Your stake is just down there, on a line with those alders. Colonel stumbled on it when we came through a little while ago. And, you can’t see it from here, but the slide "—she paused, her lips trembling yet dimpling—"the slide has opened a great mineral vein, right above us." He started up again, forgetting his injuries, and again sank back. "What luck," he said softly, "what luck. Strange," he added after a moment, "how I made that miscalculation."