the high banks on each side the
dogs could not go astray.

To an overruling Providence, and to the instincts of the dogs, I owe my
life. The creatures had not gone ten sleigh-lengths when I felt the loss
of my coat, and giving one final shout to them, I lay back on the sleigh
and covered myself, head and all, under the robes, trusting the huskies
to find their way home.

I do not like to recall that return to the Sutherlands. The man, who is
frozen to death, knows nothing of the cruelties of northern cold. The
icy hand, that takes his life, does not torture, but deadens the victim
into an everlasting, easy, painless sleep. This I know, for I felt the
deadly frost-slumber, and fought against it. Aching hands and feet
stopped paining and became utterly feelingless; and the deadening thing
began creeping inch by inch up the stiffening limbs the life centres,
till a great drowsiness began to overpower body and mind. Realizing what
this meant, I sprang from the sleigh and stopped the dogs. I tried to
grip the empty traces of the dead one, but my hands were too feeble; so
I twisted the rope round my arm, gave the word, and raced off abreast
the dog train. The creatures went faster with lightened sleigh, but
every step I took was a knife-thrust through half-frozen awakening
limbs. Not the man who is frozen to death, but the man who is
half-frozen and thawed back to life, knows the cruelties of northern
cold.

In a stupefied way, I was aware the dogs had taken a sudden turn to the
left and were scrambling up the bank. Here my strength failed or I
tripped; for I only remember being dragged through the snow, rolling
over and over, to a doorway, where the huskies stopped and set up a
great whining. Somehow, I floundered to my feet. With a blaze of light
that blinded me, the door flew open and I fell across the threshold
unconscious.

* * * * *

Need I say what door opened, what hands drew me in and chafed life into
the benumbed being?

"What was the matter, Rufus Gillespie?" asked a bluff voice the next
morning. I had awakened from what seemed a long, troubled sleep and
vaguely wondered where I was.

"What happened to ye, Rufus Gillespie?" and the man's hand took hold of
my wrist to feel my pulse.

"Don't, father! you'll hurt him!" said a voice that was music to my
ears, and a woman's hand, whose touch was healing, began bathing my
blistered palms.

At once I knew where I was and forgot