en
added with the shadow of a sigh: "What a pity you are not old-timers!"

For two hours more they kept to the frozen creek-bed of Norway, then
turned into a narrow and rugged tributary that flowed from the south. At
midday they began the ascent of the divide itself. Behind them, looking
down and back, they could see the long line of stampeders breaking up.
Here and there, in scores of places, thin smoke-columns advertised the
making of camps.

As for themselves, the going was hard. They wallowed through snow to
their waists, and were compelled to stop every few yards to breathe.
Shorty was the first to call a halt.

"We been hittin' the trail for over twelve hours," he said. "Smoke, I'm
plum willin' to say I'm good an' tired. An' so are you. An' I'm free to
shout that I can sure hang on to this here pasear like a starvin' Indian
to a hunk of bear-meat. But this poor girl here can't keep her legs no
time if she don't get something in her stomach. Here's where we build a
fire. What d'ye say?"

So quickly, so deftly and methodically, did they go about making a
temporary camp, that Joy, watching with jealous eyes, admitted to
herself that the old-timers could not do it better. Spruce boughs,
with a spread blanket on top, gave a foundation for rest and cooking
operations. But they kept away from the heat of the fire until noses and
cheeks had been rubbed cruelly.

Smoke spat in the air, and the resultant crackle was so immediate and
loud that he shook his head. "I give it up," he said. "I've never seen
cold like this."

"One winter on the Koyukuk it went to eighty-six below," Joy answered.
"It's at least seventy or seventy-five right now, and I know I've
frosted my cheeks. They're burning like fire."

On the steep slope of the divide there was no ice, so snow, as fine and
hard and crystalline as granulated sugar, was poured into the gold-pan
by the bushel until enough water was melted for the coffee. Smoke fried
bacon and thawed biscuits. Shorty kept the fuel supplied and tended the
fire, and Joy set the simple table composed of two plates, two cups, two
spoons, a tin of mixed salt and pepper, and a tin of sugar. When it came
to eating, she and Smoke shared one set between them. They ate out of
the same plate and drank from the same cup.

It was nearly two in the afternoon when they cleared the crest of the
divide and began dropping down a feeder of Squaw Creek. Earlier in the
winter some moose-hunter had made a t