himself along, and
soon came to the end of it--a few fresh-picked bones where the soggy moss
was marked by the foot-pads of many wolves. He saw a squat moose-hide
sack, mate to his own, which had been torn by sharp teeth. He picked it
up, though its weight was almost too much for his feeble fingers. Bill
had carried it to the last. Ha! ha! He would have the laugh on Bill. He
would survive and carry it to the ship in the shining sea. His mirth was
hoarse and ghastly, like a raven's croak, and the sick wolf joined him,
howling lugubriously. The man ceased suddenly. How could he have the
laugh on Bill if that were Bill; if those bones, so pinky-white and
clean, were Bill?

He turned away. Well, Bill had deserted him; but he would not take the
gold, nor would he suck Bill's bones. Bill would have, though, had it
been the other way around, he mused as he staggered on.

He came to a pool of water. Stooping over in quest of minnows, he jerked
his head back as though he had been stung. He had caught sight of his
reflected face. So horrible was it that sensibility awoke long enough to
be shocked. There were three minnows in the pool, which was too large to
drain; and after several ineffectual attempts to catch them in the tin
bucket he forbore. He was afraid, because of his great weakness, that he
might fall in and drown. It was for this reason that he did not trust
himself to the river astride one of the many drift-logs which lined its
sand-spits.

That day he decreased the distance between him and the ship by three
miles; the next day by two--for he was crawling now as Bill had crawled;
and the end of the fifth day found the ship still seven miles away and
him unable to make even a mile a day. Still the Indian Summer held on,
and he continued to crawl and faint, turn and turn about; and ever the
sick wolf coughed and wheezed at his heels. His knees had become raw
meat like his feet, and though he padded them with the shirt from his
back it was a red track he left behind him on the moss and stones. Once,
glancing back, he saw the wolf licking hungrily his bleeding trail, and
he saw sharply what his own end might be--unless--unless he could get the
wolf. Then began as grim a tragedy of existence as was ever played--a
sick man that crawled, a sick wolf that limped, two creatures dragging
their dying carcasses across the desolation and hunting each other's
lives.

Had it been a well wolf, it would not hav