bare hands, and as for endurance--well, he was hungry for a chance to
demonstrate it.

They talked little; men seldom converse in the wastes, for there is
something about the silence of the wilderness which discourages speech.
And no land is so grimly silent, so hushed and soundless, as the frozen
North. For days they marched through desolation, without glimpse of
human habitation, without sight of track or trail, without sound of a
human voice to break the monotony. There was no game in the country,
with the exception of an occasional bird or rabbit, nothing but the
white hills, the fringe of alder-tops along the watercourses, and the
thickets of gnarled, unhealthy spruce in the smothered valleys.

Their destination was a mysterious stream at the headwaters of the
unmapped Kuskokwim, where rumor said there was gold, and whither they
feared other men were hastening from the mining country far to the
north.

Now it is a penalty of the White Country that men shall think of women.
The open life brings health and vigor, strength and animal vitality, and
these clamor for play. The cold of the still, clear days is no more
biting than the fierce memories and appetites which charge through the
brain at night. Passions intensify with imprisonment, recollections come
to life, longings grow vivid and wild. Thoughts change to realities, the
past creeps close, and dream figures are filled with blood and fire. One
remembers pleasures and excesses, women's smiles, women's kisses, the
invitation of outstretched arms. Wasted opportunities mock at one.

Cantwell began to brood upon the Katmai girl, for she was the last; her
eyes were haunting and distance had worked its usual enchantment. He
reflected that Mort had shouldered him aside and won her favor, then
boasted of it. Johnny awoke one night with a dream of her, and lay
quivering.

"Hell! She was only a squaw," he said, half aloud. "If I'd really
tried--"

Grant lay beside him, snoring, the heat of their bodies intermingled.
The waking man tried to compose himself, but his partner's stertorous
breathing irritated him beyond measure; for a long time he remained
motionless, staring into the gray blur of the tent-top. He had played
out. He owed his life to the man who had cheated him of the Katmai girl,
and that man knew it. He had become a weak, helpless thing, dependent
upon another's strength, and that other now accepted his superiority as
a matter of course. The obligation w