--so and so; till in the gradual deadening of
judgment all the hardship was somehow your pardner's fault. Your nerves
made him responsible even for the snow and the wind. By-and-by he was
The Enemy. Not but what each had occasional moments of lucidity, and
drew back from the pit they were bending over. But the realisation
would fade. No longer did even the wiser of the two remember that this
is that same abyss out of which slowly, painfully, the race has
climbed. With the lessened power to keep from falling in, the terror of
it lessened. Many strange things grew natural. It was no longer
difficult or even shocking to conceive one's partner giving out and
falling by the way. Although playing about the thought, the one thing
that not even the Colonel was able actually to realise, was the
imminent probability of death for himself. Imagination always pictured
the other fellow down, one's self somehow forging ahead.

This obsession ended on the late afternoon when the Colonel broke
silence by saying suddenly:

"We must camp; I'm done." He flung himself down under a bare birch, and
hid his face.

The Boy remonstrated, grew angry; then, with a huge effort at
self-control, pointed out that since it had stopped snowing this was
the very moment to go on.

"Why, you can see the sun. Three of 'em! Look, Colonel!"

But Arctic meteorological phenomena had long since ceased to interest
the Kentuckian. Parhelia were less to him than covered eyes, and the
perilous peace of the snow. It seemed a long time before he sat up, and
began to beat the stiffness out of his hands against his breast. But
when he spoke, it was only to say:

"I mean to camp."

"For how long?"

"Till a team comes by--or something."

The Boy got up abruptly, slipped on his snow-shoes, and went round the
shoulder of the hill, and up on to the promontory, to get out of
earshot of that voice, and determine which of the two ice-roads,
stretching out before them, was main channel and which was tributary.

He found on the height only a cutting wind, and little enlightenment as
to the true course. North and east all nimbus still. A brace of
sun-dogs following the pale God of Day across the narrow field of
primrose that bordered the dun-coloured west. There would be more snow
to-morrow, and meanwhile the wind was rising again. Yes, sir, it was a
mean outlook.

As he took Mac's aneroid barometer out of his pocket, a sudden gust cut
across his raw and bleeding ch