now they had reached the edge of the timber belt that cuts off the
prairie from the desolate barrens. The spruces were gnarled and
twisted by the wind, a number of them were dead, and many of the rest
leaned unsymmetrically athwart each other. The straggling wood had no
beauty and in the fading light wore a dreary, forbidding look.
Fortunately, however, it was thin enough for the travellers to pick
their way among the fallen branches and patches of muskeg, for the
ground was marsh and their feet sank among the withered needles.

By and by Blake checked his pony and waited until Benson came up. The
man moved with a slack heaviness and his face was worn and tense. He
was tired with the journey, for excess had weakened him, and now the
lust for drink which he had stubbornly fought against had grown
overwhelming.

"I can go no faster. Push on and I'll follow your tracks," he said in
a surly tone. "It takes time to get into condition, and I haven't
walked much for several years."

"Neither have I," Harding answered cheerfully "I'm more used to riding
in elevators and the street cars, but this sort of thing soon makes you
fit."

"You're not troubled with my complaint," Benson rejoined, and when
Blake started the pony deliberately dropped behind.

"He's in a black mood; we'll leave him to himself," Harding remarked.
"So far he's braced up better than I expected, but when a man's been
tanking steadily, it's pretty drastic to put him through the total
deprivation cure."

"I wonder," Blake said thoughtfully, "whether it is a cure; we have
both seen men who made some effort to save themselves go down. Though
I'm a long way from being a philanthropist, I hate this waste of good
material. Perhaps it's partly an economic objection, because I used to
get savage in India when any of the Tommies' lives were thrown away by
careless handling."

"It was your soldiers' business to be made use of, wasn't it?"

"Yes," said Blake, frowning; "but there's a difference between that and
the other thing. It's the needless waste of life and talent that
annoys me. On the frontier, we spent men freely, which is the best
word for it, because we tried to get something in return; a rebel hill
fort seized, a raid turned back. If Benson had killed himself in
breaking a horse or by an accident with a harvesting machine, one
couldn't complain; but to see him do so with whisky is another matter."

Harding nodded. Blake was not given to