of rounds of
ammunition were left behind.

And in this fashion they covered the two hundred miles to Selkirk.
Daylight travelled late and early, the hours formerly used by
camp-making and dog-tending being now devoted to the trail. At night
they crouched over a small fire, wrapped in their robes, drinking flour
broth and thawing bacon on the ends of sticks; and in the morning
darkness, without a word, they arose, slipped on their packs, adjusted
head-straps, and hit the trail. The last miles into Selkirk, Daylight
drove the Indian before him, a hollow-cheeked, gaunt-eyed wraith of a
man who else would have lain down and slept or abandoned his burden of
mail.

At Selkirk, the old team of dogs, fresh and in condition, were
harnessed, and the same day saw Daylight plodding on, alternating
places at the gee-pole, as a matter of course, with the Le Barge Indian
who had volunteered on the way out. Daylight was two days behind his
schedule, and falling snow and unpacked trail kept him two days behind
all the way to Forty Mile. And here the weather favored. It was time
for a big cold snap, and he gambled on it, cutting down the weight of
grub for dogs and men. The men of Forty Mile shook their heads
ominously, and demanded to know what he would do if the snow still fell.

"That cold snap's sure got to come," he laughed, and mushed out on the
trail.

A number of sleds had passed back and forth already that winter between
Forty Mile and Circle City, and the trail was well packed. And the
cold snap came and remained, and Circle City was only two hundred miles
away. The Le Barge Indian was a young man, unlearned yet in his own
limitations, and filled with pride.

He took Daylight's pace with joy, and even dreamed, at first, that he
would play the white man out. The first hundred miles he looked for
signs of weakening, and marveled that he saw them not.

Throughout the second hundred miles he observed signs in himself, and
gritted his teeth and kept up. And ever Daylight flew on and on,
running at the gee-pole or resting his spell on top the flying sled.
The last day, clearer and colder than ever, gave perfect going, and
they covered seventy miles. It was ten at night when they pulled up
the earth-bank and flew along the main street of Circle City; and the
young Indian, though it was his spell to ride, leaped off and ran
behind the sled. It was honorable braggadocio, and despite the fact
that he had found his lim