provisions, sleeping-bags, and rifle, and travel as fast as you can."
Bennett paused for a moment, then in a different voice continued: "I
wrote a letter last night that I was going to give you in case I should
have to send you on such a journey, but I think I might as well give it
to you now."

He drew from his pocket an envelope carefully wrapped in oilskin.

"If anything should happen to the expedition--to me--I want you to see
that this letter is delivered."

He paused again.

"You see, Dick, it's like this; there's a girl--" his face flamed
suddenly, "no--no, a woman, a grand, noble, man's woman, back in God's
country who is a great deal to me--everything in fact. She don't know,
hasn't a guess, that I care. I never spoke to her about it. But if
anything should turn up I should want her to know how it had been
with me, how much she was to me. So I've written her. You'll see that
she gets it, will you?"

He handed the little package to Ferriss, and continued indifferently,
and resuming his accustomed manner:

"If we get as far as Wrangel Island you can give it back to me. We are
bound to meet the relief ships or the steam whalers in that latitude.
Oh, you can look at the address," added Bennett as Ferriss, turning the
envelope bottom side up, was thrusting it into his breast pocket; "you
know her even better than I do. It's Lloyd Searight."

Ferriss's teeth shut suddenly upon his pipestem.

Bennett rose. "Tell Muck Tu," he said, "in case I don't think of it
again, that the dogs must be fed from now on from those that die. I
shall want the dog biscuit and dried fish for our own use."

"I suppose it will come to that," answered Ferriss.

"Come to that!" returned Bennett grimly; "I hope the dogs themselves
will live long enough for us to eat them. And don't misunderstand," he
added; "I talk about our getting stuck in the ice, about my not pulling
through; it's only because one must foresee everything, be prepared for
everything. Remember--I--shall--pull--through."

But that night, long after the rest were sleeping, Ferriss, who had not
closed his eyes, bestirred himself, and, as quietly as possible, crawled
from his sleeping-bag. He fancied there was some slight change in the
atmosphere, and wanted to read the barometer affixed to a stake just
outside the tent. Yet when he had noted that it was, after all,
stationary, he stood for a moment looking out across the ice with
unseeing eyes. Then from a pocket i