g
her letters that always come back--trying--" His voice went out like a
candle-wick suddenly dying in the socket. Only the sleeper was audible
for full five minutes. Then, as though he had paused only a comma's
space, the Colonel went on: "I've been trying to put the memory of her
behind me, as a sane man should. But some women leave an arrow sticking
in your flesh that you can never pull out. You can only jar against it,
and cringe under the agony of the reminder all your life long.... Bah!
Go out, Boy, and bring in your sled."

And the Boy obeyed without a word.

Two days after, three men with a child stood in front of the larger
cabin, saying good-bye to their two comrades who were starting out on
snow-shoes to do a little matter of 625 miles of Arctic travelling,
with two weeks' scant provisioning, some tea and things for trading,
bedding, two rifles, and a kettle, all packed on one little hand-sled.

There had been some unexpected feeling, and even some real generosity
shown at the last, on the part of the three who were to profit by the
exodus--falling heir thereby to a bigger, warmer cabin and more food.

O'Flynn was moved to make several touching remonstrances. It was a sign
of unwonted emotion on Mac's part that he gave up arguing (sacrificing
all the delight of a set debate), and simply begged and prayed them not
to be fools, not to fly in the face of Providence.

But Potts was made of sterner stuff. Besides, the thing was too good to
be true. O'Flynn, when he found they were not to be dissuaded, solemnly
presented each with a little bottle of whisky. Nobody would have
believed O'Flynn would go so far as that. Nor could anyone have
anticipated that close-fisted Mac would give the Boy his valuable
aneroid barometer and compass, or that Potts would be so generous with
his best Virginia straight-cut, filling the Colonel's big pouch without
so much as a word.

"It's a crazy scheme," says he, shaking the giant Kentuckian by the
hand, "and you won't get thirty miles before you find it out."

"Call it an expedition to Anvik," urged Mac. "Load up there with
reindeer meat, and come back. If we don't get some fresh meat soon,
we'll be having scurvy."

"What you're furr doin'," says O'Flynn for the twentieth time, "has
niver been done, not ayven be Indians. The prastes ahl say so."

"So do the Sour-doughs," said Mac. "It isn't as if you had dogs."

"Good-bye," said the Colonel, and the men grasped hands.

P