elain, he had been nicknamed "Wall-Eye";
but, owing to his general popularity, combined with the emphatic
views he held on that particular subject, the name had been mitigated
to Walley.

The two were hauling in supplies for Conroy's Camp, on Little
Ottanoonsis Lake. Silently, but for the clank and creak of the
harness, and the soft "thut, thut" of the trodden snow, the little
procession toiled on through the soundless desolation. Between the
trees--naked birches and scattered, black-green firs--filtered the
lonely, yellowish-violet light of the fading winter afternoon. When
the light had died into ghostly grey along the corridors of the
forest, the teams rounded a turn of the trail, and began to descend
the steep slope which led down to Joe Godding's solitary cabin on the
edge of Burnt Brook Meadows. Presently the dark outline of the cabin
came into view against the pallor of the open clearing.

But there was no light in the window. No homely pungency of wood-smoke
breathed welcome on the bitter air. The cabin looked startlingly
deserted.

"Whoa!" commanded McWha, sharply, and glanced round at Johnson with an
angry misgiving in his eyes. The teams came to a stop with a shiver of
all their bells.

Then, upon the sudden stillness, arose the faint sound of a child's
voice, crying hopelessly.

"Something wrong down yonder!" growled McWha, his expectations of a
hot supper crumbling into dust.

As he spoke, Walley Johnson sprang past him and went loping down the
hill with long, loose strides like a moose.

Red McWha followed very deliberately with the teams. He resented
anything emotional. And he was prepared to feel himself aggrieved.

When he reached the cabin door the sound of weeping had stopped.
Inside he found Walley Johnson on his knees before the stove,
hurriedly lighting a fire. Wrapped in his coat, and clutching his arm
as if afraid he might leave her, stood a tiny, flaxen-haired child,
perhaps five years old. The cabin was cold, almost as cold as the
snapping night outside. Along the middle of the floor, with bedclothes
from the bunk heaped awkwardly upon it in the little one's efforts to
warm it back to responsive life, sprawled rigidly the lank body of Joe
Godding.

Red McWha stared for a moment in silence, then stooped, examined the
dead man's face, and felt his breast.

"Deader'n a herring!" he muttered.

"Yes! the poor old shike-poke!" answered Johnson, without looking up
from his task.

"He