bone, about the
sputtering lamp inside the little straining tent. The meal they made was
a very frugal one, and they lay down in the darkness after it, for half
their store of oil had been left behind in the crevice. They spoke
seldom, for the second disaster had almost crushed the courage out of
them, and it was clear to all that it would be only by a strenuous
effort that they could reach the inlet before their provisions quite ran
out. They slept, however, and rising in a stinging frost next morning
set out again on the weary march, but it was slow traveling, and at noon
they left the tent and poles behind.

"In another few days," said Wyllard, "we'll leave the sled."

They made the beach that afternoon, though the only sign of it was the
fringe of more ragged ice and the white slope beyond. A thin haze hung
about them heavy with rime, and they could not see more than a quarter
of a mile ahead. When darkness fell they scraped out a hollow beneath
what seemed to be a snow-covered rock, and sat upon their sleeping-bags.
The cooking-lamp gave little heat. Having eaten, they huddled close
together with part of their aching bodies upon the sled, but none of
them slept much that night, for the cold was severe.

The morning broke clear and warmer, and Wyllard, climbing to the summit
of the rock, had a brief glimpse of the serrated summits of a great
white range that rose to the west and south. It, however, faded like a
vision while he watched it, and turning he looked out across the rolling
wilderness that stretched away to the north. Nothing broke its gleaming
monotony, and there was no sign of life anywhere in the vast expanse.

They set out after breakfast, breaking through a thin crust of snow,
which rendered the march almost insuperably difficult, and they had made
a league or two by the approach of night. The snow had grown softer, and
the thawing surface would not bear the sled, which sank in the slush
beneath. Still, they floundered on for a while after darkness fell, and
then lay down in a hollow. A fine rain poured down on them.

Somehow they slept, and, though this was more difficult, got upon their
feet again when morning came, for of all the hard things the wanderer in
rain-swept bush or frozen wilderness must bear, there is none that tests
his powers more than, in the early dawn, the bracing of himself for
another day of effort. Comfortless as the night's lair has been, the
jaded body craves for such faint