One hiker is dead and another is in critical condition after the pair - both employees of Concord Coach Lines - were rescued near the summit of Little Haystack Mountain Monday night.

"These guys were both bachelors," Blunt said. "Normally, when you don't show up at home when you are due from a hike, a search is begun by 8 p.m. or so, but that never happened. The sad part is that instead of the search beginning at 8 p.m. that night (Sunday), it wasn't until about mid-day the next day before the search was on."

Monday night's rescue came too late for Fredrickson, a father of 27-year-old twins.

Osborne, suffering from advanced stages of hypothermia, was transported from Littleton Hospital to Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon, where he was listed in critical condition last night.

Colleague Heidi Lessard said she went to bed Monday night with word that the two had been found.

"I went to sleep very hopeful," she said. But when she awoke, she learned Fredrickson had died and Osborne was clinging to life.

The news was devastating for the company of about 200 employees. It seemed everybody knew the two men.

"You couldn't find two nicer people," she said.

Fredrickson was a driver the past 12 years and had routes all over northern New England. Recently, he had been driving the Boston commute beginning at 5:30 a.m. in Londonderry, said Blunt.

Fredrickson was divorced and lived in South Sutton not far from his ex-wife, Bette, and their twin boys, Kyle and Trevor.

Fredrickson was an avid hiker in all seasons, Blunt said. Osborne was not as experienced a winter hiker, but did enjoy hiking.

"Fred was a role model to all of us. He was in great physical shape. He was careful with his diet. He made us all better people," Blunt said.

Osborne is manager of the Boston Express, a new division within the company, and had worked the past year out of the Nashua terminal.

Osborne has been with the company for five years, and is a graduate of Kent State University in Ohio. He had been divorced for several years and was living alone in Manchester, commuting to Nashua daily.

Blunt said Osborne's parents were traveling from Asheville, N.C., yesterday to be by their son's side.

"He's had some frostbite," Blunt said. "We are keeping our fingers crossed."

Meanwhile, tributes are flowing in for Fredrickson.

"Farewell Fred," R. Gary Rasmussen of Londonderry, a regular bus passenger, wrote yesterday on a hiking blog. "You will be missed by everyone whose life you have touched."

"We can't shut down like a normal company might," Harry Blunt, president of Concord Coach Lines, said yesterday. "But we are heartsick over the loss of a good friend."

Driver Laurence "Fred" Fredrickson, 55, of South Sutton, died and fellow employee James Osborne, 36, of Massabesic Street, Manchester, is at Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon.

The two colleagues and friends met at the Concord bus terminal Sunday morning to go for a day hike on the Franconia Ridge Trail. The nine-mile loop spans over Mounts Lafayette, Lincoln and Haystack and includes