o find it
composed of surge-beaten rocks and cliffs, with no place to land.

"I told you so," Sprague whimpered.

"You never peeped," Shorty answered.

"We're going back."

Nobody spoke, and Kit held the boat into the seas as they skirted the
forbidding shore. Sometimes they gained no more than a foot to the
stroke, and there were times when two or three strokes no more than
enabled them to hold their own. He did his best to hearten the two
weaklings. He pointed out that the boats which had won to this shore had
never come back. Perforce, he argued, they had found a shelter somewhere
ahead. Another hour they labored, and a second.

"If you fellows'd put into your oars some of that coffee you swig in
your blankets, we'd make it," was Shorty's encouragement. "You're just
goin' through the motions an' not pullin' a pound."

A few minutes later, Sprague drew in his oar.

"I'm finished," he said, and there were tears in his voice.

"So are the rest of us," Kit answered, himself ready to cry or to commit
murder, so great was his exhaustion. "But we're going on just the same."

"We're going back. Turn the boat around."

"Shorty, if he won't pull, take that oar yourself," Kit commanded.

"Sure," was the answer. "He can chop ice."

But Sprague refused to give over the oar; Stine had ceased rowing, and
the boat was drifting backward.

"Turn around, Smoke," Sprague ordered.

And Kit, who never in his life had cursed any man, astonished himself.

"I'll see you in hell, first," he replied. "Take hold of that oar and
pull."

It is in moments of exhaustion that men lose all their reserves of
civilization, and such a moment had come. Each man had reached the
breaking-point. Sprague jerked off a mitten, drew his revolver, and
turned it on his steersman. This was a new experience to Kit. He had
never had a gun presented at him in his life. And now, to his surprise,
it seemed to mean nothing at all. It was the most natural thing in the
world.

"If you don't put that gun up," he said, "I'll take it away and rap you
over the knuckles with it."

"If you don't turn the boat around, I'll shoot you," Sprague threatened.

Then Shorty took a hand. He ceased chopping ice and stood up behind
Sprague.

"Go on an' shoot," said Shorty, wiggling the hatchet. "I'm just aching
for a chance to brain you. Go on an' start the festivities."

"This is mutiny," Stine broke in. "You were engaged to obey orders."

Shorty turned on him