und
the Colonel, but he had found him delivered over to that treacherous
sleep that seldom knows a waking. The Boy dropped down beside his
friend, and wasn't far off crying. But it was a tonic to young nerves
to see how, like one dead, the man lay there, for all the calling and
tugging by the arm. The Boy rolled the body over, pulled open the
things at the neck, and thrust his hand down, till he could feel the
heart beating. He jumped up, got a handful of snow, and rubbed the
man's face with it. At last a feeble protest--an effort to get away
from the Boy's rude succour.

"Thank God! Colonel! Colonel! wake up!"

He shook him hard. But the big man only growled sullenly, and let his
leaden weight drop back heavily on the ice. The Boy got hold of the
neck of the Colonel's parki and pulled him frantically along the ice a
few yards, and then realised that only the terror of the moment gave
him the strength to do that much. To drag a man of the Colonel's weight
all the way to the wood was stark impossibility. He couldn't get him
eighty yards. If he left him and went for the sled and fuel, the man
would be dead by the time he got back. If he stayed, they would both be
frozen in a few hours. It was pretty horrible.

He felt faint and dizzy. It occurred to him that he would pray. He was
an agnostic all right, but the Colonel was past praying for himself;
and here was his friend--an agnostic--here he was on his knees. He
hadn't prayed since he was a little chap down in the South. How did the
prayers go? "Our Father"--he looked up at the reddening aurora--"Our
Father, who art in heaven--" His eyes fell again on his friend. He
leapt to his feet like a wild animal, and began to go at the Colonel
with his fists. The blows rained thick on the chest of the prostrate
man, but he was too well protected to feel more than the shock. But now
they came battering down, under the ear--right, left, as the man turned
blindly to avoid them--on the jaw, even on the suffering eyes, and that
at last stung the sleeper into something like consciousness.

He struggled to his feet with a roar like a wounded bull, lunging
heavily forward as the Boy eluded him, and he would have pounded the
young fellow out of existence in no time had he stood his ground. That
was exactly what the Boy didn't mean to do--he was always just a little
way on in front; but as the Colonel's half-insane rage cooled, and he
slowed down a bit, the Boy was at him again like som