too, go on. I have but one thought. It is to come up to the
stranger-man. Then it is that I shall rest, and not until then shall I
rest, and it seems that I must lie down and sleep for a thousand years, I
am so tired.

"The stranger-man is fifty yards away, all alone in the white snow. He
falls and crawls, staggers, and falls and crawls again. He is like an
animal that is sore wounded and trying to run from the hunter. By and by
he crawls on hands and knees. He no longer stands up. And the man and
woman no longer stand up. They, too, crawl after him on hands and knees.
But I stand up. Sometimes I fall, but always do I stand up again.

"It is a strange thing to see. All about is the snow and the silence,
and through it crawl the man and the woman, and the stranger-man who goes
before. On either side the sun are sun-dogs, so that there are three
suns in the sky. The frost-dust is like the dust of diamonds, and all
the air is filled with it. Now the woman coughs, and lies still in the
snow until the fit has passed, when she crawls on again. Now the man
looks ahead, and he is blear-eyed as with old age and must rub his eyes
so that he can see the stranger-man. And now the stranger-man looks back
over his shoulder. And Sitka Charley, standing upright, maybe falls down
and stands upright again.

"After a long time the stranger-man crawls no more. He stands slowly
upon his feet and rocks back and forth. Also does he take off one mitten
and wait with revolver in his hand, rocking back and forth as he waits.
His face is skin and bones and frozen black. It is a hungry face. The
eyes are deep-sunk in his head, and the lips are snarling. The man and
woman, too, get upon their feet and they go toward him very slowly. And
all about is the snow and the silence. And in the sky are three suns,
and all the air is flashing with the dust of diamonds.

"And thus it was that I, Sitka Charley, saw the baby wolves make their
kill. No word is spoken. Only does the stranger-man snarl with his
hungry face. Also does he rock to and fro, his shoulders drooping, his
knees bent, and his legs wide apart so that he does not fall down. The
man and the woman stop maybe fifty feet away. Their legs, too, are wide
apart so that they do not fall down, and their bodies rock to and fro.
The stranger-man is very weak. His arm shakes, so that when he shoots at
the man his bullet strikes in the snow. The man cannot take off his
m