"

The horror in Jan's voice caused the rest to desist. The fallen tent had
uprisen, and in the gathering twilight it flapped ghostly arms about and
titubated toward them drunkenly. But the next instant John Gordon found
the opening and crawled forth.

"What the flaming--!" For the moment his voice died away in his throat
as his eyes took in the tableau. "Hold on! I'm not dead!" he cried out,
coming up to the group with stormy countenance.

"Allow me, Mistah Gordon, to congratulate you upon youah escape," Mr.
Taylor ventured. "A close shave, suh, a powahful close shave."

" Congratulate hell! I might have been dead and rotten and no thanks to
you, you--!" And thereat John Gordon delivered himself of a vigorous
flood of English, terse, intensive, denunciative, and composed solely of
expletives and adjectives.

"Simply creased me," he went on when he had eased himself sufficiently.
"Ever crease cattle, Taylor?"

"Yes, suh, many a time down in God's country."

"Just so. That's what happened to me. Bullet just grazed the base of my
skull at the top of the neck. Stunned me but no harm done." He turned
to the bound man. "Get up, Jan. I'm going to lick you to a standstill
or you're going to apologize. The rest of you lads stand clear."

"I tank not. Shust tie me loose und you see," replied Jan, the
Unrepentant, the devil within him still unconquered. "Und after as I
lick you, I take der rest of der noddleheads, von after der odder,
altogedder!"

GRIT OF WOMEN

A wolfish head, wistful-eyed and frost-rimed, thrust aside the
tent-flaps.

"Hi! Chook! Siwash! Chook, you limb of Satan!" chorused the protesting
inmates. Bettles rapped the dog sharply with a tin plate, and it
withdrew hastily. Louis Savoy refastened the flaps, kicked a frying-pan
over against the bottom, and warmed his hands. It was very cold without.
Forty-eight hours gone, the spirit thermometer had burst at sixty-eight
below, and since that time it had grown steadily and bitterly colder.
There was no telling when the snap would end. And it is poor policy,
unless the gods will it, to venture far from a stove at such times, or to
increase the quantity of cold atmosphere one must breathe. Men sometimes
do it, and sometimes they chill their lungs. This leads up to a dry,
hacking cough, noticeably irritable when bacon is being fried. After
that, somewhere along in the spring or summer, a hole is burned in the
frozen muck.