ily loaded Yukon sled, and before him toiled a
string of five dogs. The rope by which they dragged the sled rubbed
against the side of Messner's leg. When the dogs swung on a bend in the
trail, he stepped over the rope. There were many bends, and he was
compelled to step over it often. Sometimes he tripped on the rope, or
stumbled, and at all times he was awkward, betraying a weariness so great
that the sled now and again ran upon his heels.

When he came to a straight piece of trail, where the sled could get along
for a moment without guidance, he let go the gee-pole and batted his
right hand sharply upon the hard wood. He found it difficult to keep up
the circulation in that hand. But while he pounded the one hand, he
never ceased from rubbing his nose and cheeks with the other.

"It's too cold to travel, anyway," he said. He spoke aloud, after the
manner of men who are much by themselves. "Only a fool would travel at
such a temperature. If it isn't eighty below, it's because it's seventy-
nine."

He pulled out his watch, and after some fumbling got it back into the
breast pocket of his thick woollen jacket. Then he surveyed the heavens
and ran his eye along the white sky-line to the south.

"Twelve o'clock," he mumbled, "A clear sky, and no sun."

He plodded on silently for ten minutes, and then, as though there had
been no lapse in his speech, he added:

"And no ground covered, and it's too cold to travel."

Suddenly he yelled "Whoa!" at the dogs, and stopped. He seemed in a wild
panic over his right hand, and proceeded to hammer it furiously against
the gee-pole.

"You--poor--devils!" he addressed the dogs, which had dropped down
heavily on the ice to rest. His was a broken, jerky utterance, caused by
the violence with which he hammered his numb hand upon the wood. "What
have you done anyway that a two-legged other animal should come along,
break you to harness, curb all your natural proclivities, and make slave-
beasts out of you?"

He rubbed his nose, not reflectively, but savagely, in order to drive the
blood into it, and urged the dogs to their work again. He travelled on
the frozen surface of a great river. Behind him it stretched away in a
mighty curve of many miles, losing itself in a fantastic jumble of
mountains, snow-covered and silent. Ahead of him the river split into
many channels to accommodate the freight of islands it carried on its
breast. These islands were silent and wh