sunset flaring across the snow,
but intensely cold; and though the men had wood enough and sat close
beside a fire, with their ragged blankets wrapped round them, they
could not keep warm. Harding and Benson were openly dejected, but
Blake had somehow preserved his cheerful serenity. As usual after
finishing their scanty supper, they began to talk, for during the day
conversation was limited by the toil of the march.

"No good," Harding said, taking a few bits of resin out of a bag.
"It's common fir gum, such as I could gather a carload of in the
forests of Michigan. Guess there's something wrong with my theory
about the effects of extreme cold." He took a larger lump from a neat
leather case. "This is the genuine article, and it's certainly the
product of a coniferous tree. The fellow I got it from said it was
found in the coldest parts of North America. Seems to me we have tried
all the varieties of the firs, but we're as far from finding what we
want as when we started."

"Hard luck!" Benson remarked gloomily.

Harding broke off a fragment and lighted it.

"Notice the smell. It's characteristic."

"The fellow may have been right on one point," said Blake. "When I was
in India I once got some incense which was brought down in small
quantities from the Himalayas, and, I understood, came from near the
snow-line. The smell was the same; one doesn't forget a curious scent."

"That's so. Talking about it reminds me that I was puzzled by a smell
I thought I ought to know when I brought Clarke out of the tepee. I
know now what it was; and the thing's significant. It was gasoline."

"They extract it from crude petroleum, don't they?"

"Yes; it's called petrol on your side. Clarke's out for coal-oil; and
I guess he's struck it."

"Then he's lucky; but his good fortune doesn't concern us, and we have
other things to think about. What are you going to do, now that we
don't seem able to find the gum?"

"It's a difficult question," Harding answered in a troubled voice.
"I'd hate to go back, with nothing accomplished and all my money spent.
Marianna's paying for this journey in many ways, and I haven't the grit
to tell her we're poorer than when I left. She wouldn't complain; but
when you have to live on a small commission that's hard to make, it's
the woman who meets the bill."

Blake made a sign of sympathy. He had never shared Harding's
confidence in the success of his search, and had joined in it