"And the women are weeping and wringing their hands
For those who will never come back to the town."

But he had come back. He smiled vaguely; they needn't wring their hands
and weep--and the rest of it:

"For men must work, and women must weep,
And the sooner it's over the sooner to sleep,
And good-by to the bar and its moaning."

Sleep! That's what he needed--sleep. He could sleep forever and ever,
here in his warm, warm bunk. And the moaning of the bar--he liked that;
he could hear it moaning now--roaring and moaning.

Bill Carmody closed his eyes. The fine, sifting snow came and covered
his body and the smaller body of the boy who was lashed firmly to his
broad back--and all about him the blizzard howled and roared and
moaned.

And it was night!

CHAPTER XLIII

IN CAMP AGAIN

The violence of the storm precluded the use of horses about the camp,
and the trail that slanted from the clearing to the water-hole was soon
drifted high with snow, rendering useless the heavy tank-sled. Fallon,
who had been placed in temporary charge of the camp, told the men into
water-shifts; barrels were lashed to strong sleds and man-hauled to the
top of the bank, where the guide-rope had been run to the water-hole.

The men of the shift formed a long line reaching from the sled to the
river, and the water dipped from the hole cut in the ice was passed
from man to man in buckets to be dumped into the barrels and
distributed between the stables, cook-shack, bunk-house, and "house."

Darkness had fallen when the men of the afternoon shift wallowed toward
the river upon the last trip of the second day of the great blizzard.
The roar of the wind as it hurled the frozen particles against their
cold-benumbed faces drowned their muttered curses as, thirty strong,
they pushed and hauled the cumbersome sled to the top of the bank.
Seizing the buckets, they strung out, making their way down the steep
slope with one hand on the guide-rope.

Suddenly the foremost man stumbled and fell. He scrambled profanely to
his knees and began feeling about in the thick darkness for his bucket.
His mittened hand came into contact with the object which, protruding
from the snow, had tripped him, and with a vicious wrench he endeavored
to remove it from the trail. It yielded a little, but remained firmly
imbedded.

With a wild yell he forgot his bucket and began digging and clawing in
the snow, for the object he grasped was