His breath came in painful gasps. The club slipped from his nerveless
fingers, and conscious of the deathly weakness that was overcoming him
he did not attempt to regain it. Foot by foot he struggled on, until
suddenly his knees gave way under him and he sank down into the snow.

From the edge of the spruce forest a young Indian now ran out upon the
surface of the lake. His breath was coming quickly, but with excitement
rather than fatigue. Behind him, less than half a mile away, he could
hear the rapidly approaching cry of the hunt-pack, and for an instant he
bent his lithe form close to the snow, measuring with the acuteness of
his race the distance of the pursuers. Then he looked for his white
companion, and failed to see the motionless blot that marked where the
other had fallen. A look of alarm shot into his eyes, and resting his
rifle between his knees he placed his hands, trumpet fashion, to his
mouth and gave a signal call which, on a still night like this, carried
for a mile.

"Wa-hoo-o-o-o-o-o! Wa-hoo-o-o-o-o-o!"

At that cry the exhausted boy in the snow staggered to his feet, and
with an answering shout which came but faintly to the ears of the
Indian, resumed his flight across the lake. Two or three minutes later
Wabi came up beside him.

"Can you make it, Rod?" he cried.

The other made an effort to answer, but his reply was hardly more than a
gasp. Before Wabi could reach out to support him he had lost his little
remaining strength and fallen for a second time into the snow.

"I'm afraid--I--can't do it--Wabi," he whispered. "I'm--bushed--"

The young Indian dropped his rifle and knelt beside the wounded boy,
supporting his head against his own heaving shoulders.

"It's only a little farther, Rod," he urged. "We can make it, and take
to a tree. We ought to have taken to a tree back there, but I didn't
know that you were so far gone; and there was a good chance to make
camp, with three cartridges left for the open lake."

"Only three!"

"That's all, but I ought to make two of them count in this light. Here,
take hold of my shoulders! Quick!"

He doubled himself like a jack-knife in front of his half-prostrate
companion. From behind them there came a sudden chorus of the wolves,
louder and clearer than before.

"They've hit the open and we'll have them on the lake inside of two
minutes," he cried. "Give me your arms, Rod! There! Can you hold the
gun?"

He straightened himself, staggering u