olid, and could be eaten
only after thawing over a fire. But the suet crumbled in their mouths
and eased the palpitating faintness in their stomachs.

Black darkness, with an overcast sky, came on after a long twilight at
nine o'clock, when they made camp in a clump of dwarf spruce. McCan
was whining and helpless. The day's march had been exhausting, but in
addition, despite his nine years' experience in the arctic, he had been
eating snow and was in agony with his parched and burning mouth. He
crouched by the fire and groaned, while they made the camp.

Labiskwee was tireless, and Smoke could not but marvel at the life in
her body, at the endurance of mind and muscle. Nor was her cheerfulness
forced. She had ever a laugh or a smile for him, and her hand lingered
in caress whenever it chanced to touch his. Yet, always, when she looked
at McCan, her face went hard and pitiless and her eyes flashed frostily.

In the night came wind and snow, and through a day of blizzard they
fought their way blindly, missing the turn of the way that led up a
small stream and crossed a divide to the west. For two more days they
wandered, crossing other and wrong divides, and in those two days they
dropped spring behind and climbed up into the abode of winter.

"The young men have lost our trail, an' what's to stop us restin' a
day?" McCan begged.

But no rest was accorded. Smoke and Labiskwee knew their danger. They
were lost in the high mountains, and they had seen no game nor signs of
game. Day after day they struggled on through an iron configuration of
landscape that compelled them to labyrinthine canyons and valleys that
led rarely to the west. Once in such a canyon, they could only follow
it, no matter where it led, for the cold peaks and higher ranges on
either side were unscalable and unendurable. The terrible toil and
the cold ate up energy, yet they cut down the size of the ration they
permitted themselves.

One night Smoke was awakened by a sound of struggling. Distinctly he
heard a gasping and strangling from where McCan slept. Kicking the fire
into flame, by its light he saw Labiskwee, her hands at the Irishman's
throat and forcing from his mouth a chunk of partly chewed meat. Even
as Smoke saw this, her hand went to her hip and flashed with the
sheath-knife in it.

"Labiskwee!" Smoke cried, and his voice was peremptory.

The hand hesitated.

"Don't," he said, coming to her side.

She was shaking with anger, but t