again swung to the outer edge, and shot over.

As if hurled from a catapult, the Irishman was ejected from the white
monster's back. He fell on a wide shelf of ice, covered with light snow,
through which he was tunnelled, and dropped on another ledge below, near
the path by which he and his companions had ascended. "Shied from the
finish, by God!" said Jo Gordineer. "'Le pauvre Shon!'" added Pretty
Pierre.

The Honourable was making his way down, his brain haunted by the words,
"He'll never go back to Farcalladen more."

But Jo was right.

For Shon McGann was alive. He lay breathless, helpless, for a moment;
then he sat up and scanned his lacerated fingers: he looked up the path
by which he had come; he looked down the path he seemed destined to go;
he started to scratch his head, but paused in the act, by reason of his
fingers.

Then he said: "It's my mother wouldn't know me from a can of cold meat
if I hadn't stopped at this station; but wurrawurra, what a car it was to
come in!" He examined his tattered clothes and bare elbows; then he
unbuckled the gold-pan, and no easy task was it with his ragged fingers.
"'Twas not for deep minin' I brought ye," he said to the pan, "nor for
scrapin' the clothes from me back."

Just then the Honourable came up. "Shon, my man . . . alive, thank
God! How is it with you?"