The final course was ushered in at last, When apple sauce around the board was passed; As Uncle Jim stretched forth his hand across The table to the dish of apple-sauce, And on his ample pie tin placed some more, A hurried knock resounded from the door, And Steve McCoy, a miner in the camp, With brow from snow and perspiration damp, Rushed in, from out the white and whirling waste, In the excitement incident to haste, And waiving further ceremony cried:-- "Our cabin has been taken by a slide!" Steve as a snowy Santa Claus appeared, Pulling the icicles from off his beard, Relating, in his intervals of breath, His tale of dire disaster and of death; He, and his partner "Smithy," were on shift Within the tunnel working in a drift, Chasing a stringer in their search for ore, Within the hill a thousand feet or more. The rock was hard and both of them were tired, The holes were blasted as the work required; Then to their consternation and surprise, Upon emerging from the tunnel's mouth, No hospitable cabin met their eyes Upon the hillside, sloping toward the south; The hut of logs where they had cooked and slept Had been from human eyes forever swept. Their partners, it were reason to presume, Were suffocating in a snowy tomb. "Smithy" had gone to Uncle Bobby Green, Whose cabin lay the nearest to the scene, To summon help, and get the boys to go To probe with poles and shovels in the snow, To find the living, or if life had sped, To make the avalanche yield up its dead. Of partners, Steve and Smithy had but two, "Daddy" McLaughlin and young Dick McGrew, Uncle and nephew, patriarch and youth, Both men of strict integrity and truth. Four other miners on another lease Dwelt with the boys in harmony and peace. Two strangers, who arrived the night before, Had been invited, till the storm was o'er, To share their hospitality. Their fate Had raised the list of dead, perhaps, to eight. Ere Steve had panted forth his final word, The boys had risen up with one accord; The rescue must be tried at any cost, The chance, however slight, must not be lost. Steve as a runner who has reached his goal, Leaned half exhausted on his snowshoe pole, The while his sturdy auditors began To don their caps and mittens, to a man, Then wrapping mufflers 'round their ears and throats, Put on their clumsy, canvas overcoats. Thanks to the providence of Dad McGuire, Who always kept a stock of baling wire And odds and ends of everything around, Their feet were quickly and securely bound With canvas ore sacks or with gunny-sacks, A thing the miner's wardrobe seldom lacks. VI. THE RESCUE