Part 23 (1/2)

He knew, too, that Bobby, when hunting with Abel upon the barrens, had weathered some terrific storms These were experiences which he hi their wintermore closely to the forests, where they were protected froales and could always find firewood in abundance, and could build a tes as he sat huddled upon the sledge, his hope that Bobby rew, and he felt a sense of vast relief steal over him He was not so cold now, his brain was heavy with sleep and he began to doze

Suddenly he again realized his own danger were he to sub upon hi to his feet and ju his arh his veins, and his brain awake

”I ! Bobby is lost out there and I can't help hi for ”

Then he re under the drifts, and what Bobby had said about them, and with feverish haste he drew his snow knife and cut away the drift which now all but covered the _ko fro deeper down and down into the drift, stretched the bag into the hole he had made, and slid into it, and in a little while the snow covered his lay buried beneath the drift

CHAPTER XXV

A LONELY JOURNEY

Weary as Ji tiinings Would he ever see good old Partner again? Would he ever see the cozy cabin that had been his hoain sit, snug in his big ar fire, while Skipper Ed helped him with his studies or told him stories of the far-off fairy land of civilization?

Then for a ti about Bobby, and, in his old way, to worrying, and to wondering if, after all, he could not or should not make one more attempt to rescue his coo that last time,” he moaned ”If he perishes it will be ht further! I should have kept hio ahead! Oh, I should have held him back! I should have held him back!”

And in this soliloquy Jih he did not know it, that Bobby was his leader still, as he always had been, and that Bobby's will and judgo upon that last atteloo_, and Bobby went, and Jiainst Bobby's than he could have stopped the blowing of the wind

”No,” he ad more to find Bobby In this terrible storm I would have perished, for it is physically i his conscience, perh once he had been upon the point of digging out of his retreat and throwing hi snow and darkness And then he prayed the good Lord to preserve Bobby's life and his own, and to guide them back to safety, as only He could, for they were in His care

Even under the snowdrift that had quickly covered hi of ice and seas, and there was little wonder that at last he fancied the floe rising and falling beneath hi cast into the water and crushed beneath , and nature's de under his accu blanket of snow, a droar he had been sleeping Jimmy did not knohen he awoke froloo_ and the top had fallen in and was suffocating hiht For awits, he believed it no dreas of the previous afternoon and night were re, and he began wildly digging away the snoith his hands

It was a hard task, but at last he h the drift, and was astonished as he forced his way out to find that it was broad day and the sun shone brightly and a dead calm prevailed

But a wild terror came upon him as he looked about Less than fifty feet froe of the ice On the opposite side and very close to hiainst the land ice, offering hi to Jimmy The liht a full two miles to the southeast and well out to sea, and Bobby was either on that pack or had been lost in the sea The discovery nized the land near hian The pack in its southward drift had co projection of land, the wind had severed the pack, and, while the comparatively small section of floe upon which he stood had re far out beyond the obstruction of the cape, had been swept on and on, and was now floating steadily southward

In frantic frenzy Jimmy ran about and shouted, and searched every nook and turn of his little corner of the original floe for Bobby, but there was no trace of his ain he searched, but without reward Bobby was gone and Jier had any doubt that he had perished

With heavy heart he at last set about with his snow knife, digging the _ko his load in order, and then he roused the dogs froreat floe was now but a speck upon the far horizon

There was nothing more he could do He felt verythat very ain, what Skipper Ed had so often said: ”Our destiny is in God's hands, and our destiny is His will”

Jian on two or three occasions when he had been with Skipper Ed in their trap boat in summer, and he knew that he could not be above two days' journey from the head of Abel's Bay, for noas March and the days were growing long And between Cape Harrigan and Abel's Bay was a Hudson's Bay trading post where he and Skipper Ed sometimes traded furs and salt trout for flour and pork and tea, and beyond this point he knew the sledge route well

So, as there was nothing else to be done, he turned the dog tea post and the old familiar trail