er but what they got to fightin' or pokin' fun
at each other. Me an' Sweeny won't quarrel. I take his clickatyclack for
what it's worth by the cart-load. 'Twon't hurt me. Dunno but what it's
good for me."

"Bedad, it's betther for ye nor yer own gruntin'," added the irrepressible
Irishman.

By two in the afternoon they had made perhaps fifteen miles, and reached
the foot of the mountain which they proposed to skirt. As Glover was now
fagged out, Thurstane decided to halt for the night and try deer-stalking.
A muddy water-hole, surrounded by thickets of willows, indicated their
camping ground. The sick man was _cached_ in the dense foliage; his
canteen was filled for him and placed by his side; there could be no other
nursing.

"If the nagurs kill ye, I'll revenge ye," was Sweeny's parting
encouragement. "I'll git ye back yer scallup, if I have to cut it out of
um."

Late in the evening the two hunters returned empty. Sweeny, in spite of
his hunger and fatigue, boiled over with stories of the hairbreadth
escapes of the "antyloops" that he had fired at. Thurstane also had seen
game, but not near enough for a shot.

"I didn't look for such bad luck," said the weary and half-starved young
fellow, soberly. "No supper for any of us. We must save our last ration to
make to-morrow's march on."

"It's a poor way of atin' two males in wan," remarked Sweeny. "I niver
thought I'd come to wish I had me haversack full o' dried bear."

The next day was a terrible one. Already half famished, their only food
for the twenty-four hours was about four ounces apiece of bear meat,
tough, ill-scented, and innutritious. Glover was so weak with hunger and
his ailments that he had to be supported most of the way by his two
comrades. His temper, and Sweeny's also, gave out, and they snarled at
each other in good earnest, as men are apt to do under protracted
hardships. Thurstane stalked on in silence, sustained by his youth and
health, and not less by his sense of responsibility. These men were here
through his doing; he must support them and save them if possible; if not,
he must show them how to die bravely; for it had come to be a problem of
life and death. They could not expect to travel two days longer without
food. The time was approaching when they would fall down with faintness,
not to rise again in this world.

In the morning their only provision was one small bit of meat which
Thurstane had saved from his ration of the day bef