Part 74 (2/2)

With stiff hands they tried to improvise a makes.h.i.+ft with a stick of birch and some string.

”Don't know what you think,” says the Colonel presently, ”but I call this a desperate business we've undertaken.”

The Boy didn't trust himself to call it anything. With a bungled job they went lamely on. The loose snow was whirling about so, it was impossible to say whether it was still falling, or only hurricane-driven.

To the Colonel's great indignation it was later than usual before they camped.

Not a word was spoken by either till they had finished their first meal, and the Colonel had melted a frying-pan full of snow preparatory to the second. He took up the rice-bag, held it by the top, and ran his mittened hand down the gathered sack till he had outlined the contents at the bottom.

”Lord! That's all there is.”

The boy only blinked his half-shut eyes. The change in him, from talkativeness to utter silence, had grown horribly oppressive to the Colonel. He often felt he'd like to shake him till he shook some words out. ”I told you days ago,” he went on, ”that we ought to go on rations.”

Silence.

”But no! you knew so much better.”

The Boy shut his eyes, and suddenly, like one struggling against sleep or swooning, he roused himself.

”I thought I knew the more we took off the d.a.m.n sled the lighter it'd be. 'Tisn't so.”

”And we didn't either of us think we'd come down from eighteen miles a day to six,” returned the Colonel, a little mollified by any sort of answer. ”I don't believe we're going to put this job through.”

Now this was treason.

Any trail-man may think that twenty times a day, but no one ought to say it. The Boy set his teeth, and his eyes closed. The whole thing was suddenly harder--doubt of the issue had been born into the world. But he opened his eyes again. The Colonel had carefully poured some of the rice into the smoky water of the pan. What was the fool doing? Such a little left, and making a second supper?

Only that morning the Boy had gone a long way when mentally he called the boss of the Big Chimney Camp ”an old woman.” By night he was saying in his heart, ”The Colonel's a fool.” His pardner caught the look that matched the thought.

”No more second helpin's,” he said in self-defence; ”this'll freeze into cakes for luncheon.”

No answer. No implied apology for that look. In the tone his pardner had come to dread the Colonel began: ”If we don't strike a settlement to-morrow----”

”Don't _talk!”_

The Boy's tired arm fell on the handle of the frying-pan. Over it went--rice, water, and all in the fire. The culprit sprang up speechless with dismay, enraged at the loss of the food he was hungry for--enraged at ”the fool fry-pan”--enraged at the fool Colonel for balancing it so badly.

A column of steam and smoke rose into the frosty air between the two men. As it cleared away a little the Boy could see the Colonel's bloodshot eyes. The expression was ill to meet.

When they crouched down again, with the damped-out fire between them, a sense of utter loneliness fell upon each man's heart.

The next morning, when they came to digging the sled out of the last night's snow-drift, the Boy found to his horror that he was weaker--yes, a good deal. As they went on he kept stumbling. The Colonel fell every now and then. Sometimes he would lie still before he could pull himself on his legs again.

In these hours they saw nothing of the grim and splendid waste; nothing of the ranks of snow-laden trees; nothing of sun course or of stars, only the half-yard of dazzling trail in front of them, and --clairvoyant--the little store of flour and bacon that seemed to shrink in the pack while they dragged it on.

Apart from partial snow-blindness, which fell at intervals upon the Colonel, the tiredness of the eyes was like a special sickness upon them both. For many hours together they never raised their lids, looking out through slits, cat-like, on the world.

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