object moved and resolved itself unmistakably into a horse struggling to
rise. For an instant they saw the head and the fore-part of the body
lift, and then flop prone again. Close against it lay another dark
object.

"Horse down!" snapped Yorke tersely. "Hell!" he added, "looks like a man
there, too! come on quick!"

Responding to a shake of the lines and a fierce thrust of the spurs,
their horses leapt forward and they raced towards their objective.

"Steady! steady!" hissed Yorke, checking his mount as they drew near the
fallen animal and its rider, "pull Fox a bit, Red! Mustn't scare the
horse!"

Slackening into a walk, they flung out of saddle, dropped their lines,
crouched, and crept warily forward. The horse, a big, splendid
seal-brown animal, had fallen on its right side, with its off fore-leg
plunged deep in a snow-filled badger-hole. The body of the man lay also
on the off-side with one leg under his mount. The stiffened form was a
ghastly object to behold, being literally encased in an armour-like shell
of frozen, claret-coloured snow.

At the approach of the would-be rescuers the poor brute whinnied
pitifully and made another ineffectual attempt to rise. Yorke flung
himself onto the head and held it down, while George dived frantically
for the man's body, and tugged until he had got the leg from under.

"Hung up! by God!" gasped the former, "his foot's well-nigh through the
stirrup!"