ght have been delicate in other periods
and climes, but here no false sentimentality clouded the grisly
facts. Face to face with them stood hunger and cold, two relentless
enemies. Hunger, in a land where the temperature burns up the
tissues as a freight-engine on a grade eats coal, makes no truces;
it sets its fangs when October comes, and tries its malignant best
to keep them set until May or June.

Cold is something that persons of a temperate clime never experience.
When the temperature reaches ten below zero the papers are full of
it, and there is general consternation. But, here, in latitude
fifty-four north, the mercury goes down to fifty or sixty below,
and life becomes something that is at best only mere existence,
and at worst, annihilation.

And these were the two foes that a hardy man and a delicately
natured woman set themselves to defeat.

"I--I can't very well sleep outside the shanty," said Donald as
indifferently as possible. "I have no tent or sleeping-bag. I should
freeze to death."

The girl colored slightly, and asked:

"Is there no way to make a partition?" The man pondered a minute,
and then shook his head.

"Of course," he explained, "a wood partition is out of the question,
because any real tree would break ax steel into brittle bits.
However, there are the robes and blankets you traveled in. If we
find we can spare one of those, we'll fix a partition--otherwise
not. We can't risk freezing our faces or our bodies at night."

He spoke with a tone of genial friendliness, but there was a note
of undisputable authority in his voice that silenced whatever
objection the girl might have offered. Already, she began to feel
that this man knew. He would cherish her to his last breath, but
what he said she must obey, both for his sake and her own. There
was no equivocation possible; he had taken command; he would give
orders, which he expected her to obey promptly; he would do everything
for the best. He _knew_, and she did not. Therefore, she would
trust herself to him. So, she surrendered her will to his, and felt
little thrills of admiration as he walked about deep in thought,
planning their temporary life in this wretched hovel, which, somehow,
had stolen a little of the sunshine from the snow, and become a
dear and sacred dwelling-place.

Leaving her to set the place in order as much as possible, Donald
returned to the river and the upturned sledge. The latter, grounding
in a shallow, had