I fell down the gulch. Some ribs broke."

"Ah!" said Pete. "Which side?"

Jim indicated the spot where he felt the stabs and Pete went to his
other side.

"It's a blamed long hike to my shack, but you've got to make it. If we
stop here, we freeze. Put your arm on my shoulder."

They set off, and Jim was glad to use such help as the other could
give. He was getting dull and began to doubt if he could reach the
shack, but although both would freeze if they stopped, Pete would not
leave him. It was not a thing to argue about. Pete was a white man
and in the North the white man's code is stern. One here and there
might have a yellow streak, but as a rule such a man soon left the
wilds. Anyhow, Pete was going to see him through. Both would make the
shack, or both would be buried in the snow. It was not a matter of
generous sentiment; one did things like that.

They made it somehow, at a cost neither afterwards talked about, for at
length a pale glimmer pierced the blowing snow. Then the dark bulk of
a building loomed up ahead and Pete pushed open a door. He was forced
to use both hands to shut the door and Jim, left without support,
staggered into the room. His head swam, his eyes were dim, and his
chin was red. There was a chair, if he could reach it, but it seemed
to be rocking about and when he stretched out his hand it had gone.
Next moment he fell with a heavy thud. He felt a horrible stab, a fit
of coughing shook him, and he knew nothing more.

CHAPTER III

THE THIRD PARTNER

Some weeks after he mended the line, Jim sat by a window in a small
frame house at Vancouver city. He had been very ill and knew little
about his journey on a hand-sledge from the telegraph shack to the
railroad. There was no doctor in the woods and Jake Winter, his
helper, engaging two Indians, wrapped Jim in furs and started in a
snowstorm for the South. It was an arduous journey, and once or twice
Jake thought his comrade would succumb, but they reached the railroad
and he put Jim on the cars.

Now Jim was getting better and had left his bed for a rocking-chair.
The house stood on the hill, and he looked down, across tall blocks of
stores and offices, on the Inlet. Plumes of dingy smoke from
locomotives burning soft coal moved among the lumber stacks, a tug with
a wave at her bows headed for the wharf, the water sparkled in the
sunshine, and there was a background of dark forest and white
mountains. The pi