look upon to those two who
knew its significance--that flag glowing like a splotch of blood there
in the brazen sky."

Drawn by Frank E. Schoonover]

Even as they spoke the cabin door opened and a man stepped out. His
features were indistinguishable, but both could see that he was a large
man, for his bulk had filled the doorway. He swung a heavy pack to a
toboggan which stood waiting before the door with the dogs in harness.
The next moment the form of a woman appeared in the doorway. She
evidently called to the man, for he halted abruptly and faced about,
shook his fist at her and, turning, resumed his course, while with an
appealing gesture the woman stretched out her arms toward him.

Then rapidly as it had formed, the picture faded and the two awe-struck
watchers stood gazing at the frost spicules that glittered brassily in
the unwholesome light of the false suns.

Once more the Indian buried his face in his arms and muffled, moaning
words fell from his lips: "De red death--de white death! It is
_mesahchee tamahnawus_! We die! We die!"

Again Connie shook him roughly, and meeting with no response, beat his
arms from his face with the loaded butt of his dog whip.

"You're a crazy fool!" cried the boy, with his lips close to the
Indian's ear. "We're _not_ going to die--anyway, not till we've had a
run for our money! We're going to mush! Do you hear? _Mush!_ And we're
going to keep on mushing till we find that cabin! And if you hang back
or quit, I'm going to wind this walrus hide whip around you till I cut
you in strips--do you get it?" And, without another word, the boy
turned, whipped the dogs to their feet, and leaving the river abruptly,
led off straight into the north across the low, snow-covered ridge.

* * * * *

Of the two brothers Bossuet, Victor, the elder, was loved in the North;
and Rene was hated. And the reason for this lay in the men themselves.
Both were rivermen--good rivermen--and both laboured each year during
the long days of the summer months, together with many other rivermen,
in working the Hudson's Bay brigade of scows down the three great
connecting rivers to the frozen sea. For between Athabasca Landing and
Fort McPherson lie two thousand miles of wilderness--a wilderness whose
needs are primitive but imperative, having to do with life and death.
And the supplies for this vast wilderness must go in without fail each
year by the three rivers, the Athaba