nes, the Boy put on the
Colonel's snow-shoes, and went off looking along the foot of the cliff
for his own. No luck, but he brought back some birch-bark and a handful
of willow-withes, and set about making a rude substitute.

Before they had despatched breakfast the great red moon arose, so it
was not morning, but evening. So much the better. The crust would be
firmer. The moon was full; it was bright enough to travel, and travel
they must.

"No!" said the Colonel, with a touch of his old pompous authority,
"we'll wait awhile."

The Boy simply pointed to the flour-bag. There wasn't a good handful
left.

They ate supper, studiously avoiding each other's eyes. In the
background of the Boy's mind: "He saved my life, but he ran no risk....
And I saved his. We're quits." In the Colonel's, vague, insistent,
stirred the thought, "I might have left him there to rot, half-way up
the precipice. Oh, he'd go! _And he'd take the sled_! No!" His vanished
strength flowed back upon a tide of rage. Only one sleeping-bag, one
kettle, one axe, one pair of snow-shoes ... _one gun_! No, by the
living Lord! not while I have a gun. Where's my gun? He looked about
guiltily, under his lowered lids. What? No! Yes! It was gone! Who
packed at the last camp? Why, he--himself, and he'd left it behind.
"Then it was because I didn't see it; the Boy took care I shouldn't see
it! Very likely he buried it so that I shouldn't see it! He--yes--if I
refuse to go on, he----"

And the Boy, seeing without looking, taking in every move, every shade
in the mood of the broken-spirited man, ready to die here, like a dog,
in the snow, instead of pressing on as long as he could crawl--the Boy,
in a fever of silent rage, called him that "meanest word in the
language--a quitter." And as, surreptitiously, he took in the vast
discouragement of the older man, there was nothing in the Boy's changed
heart to say, "Poor fellow! if he can't go on, I'll stay and die with
him"; but only, "He's _got_ to go on! ... and if he refuses ...
well----" He felt about in his deadened brain, and the best he could
bring forth was: "I won't leave him--_yet_."

* * * * *

A mighty river-jam had forced them up on the low range of hills. It was
about midnight to judge by the moon--clear of snow and the wind down.
The Boy straightened up at a curious sight just below them. Something
black in the moonlight. The Colonel paused, looked down, and passed his