f me breaking it?' Both men shook
their heads, striving to fathom what lay beyond.

'Well, then, what do you think of a promise made by me?' 'As good as
your bond,' from Bettles.

'The thing to safely sling yer hopes of heaven by,' promptly endorsed
Lon McFane.

'Listen! I, Malemute Kid, give you my word--and you know what that
means that the man who is not shot stretches rope within ten minutes
after the shooting.' He stepped back as Pilate might have done after
washing his hands.

A pause and a silence came over the men of Forty-Mile. The sky drew
still closer, sending down a crystal flight of frost--little geometric
designs, perfect, evanescent as a breath, yet destined to exist till
the returning sun had covered half its northern journey.

Both men had led forlorn hopes in their time--led with a curse or a
jest on their tongues, and in their souls an unswerving faith in the
God of Chance. But that merciful deity had been shut out from the
present deal. They studied the face of Malemute Kid, but they studied
as one might the Sphinx. As the quiet minutes passed, a feeling that
speech was incumbent on them began to grow. At last the howl of a
wolf-dog cracked the silence from the direction of Forty-Mile. The
weird sound swelled with all the pathos of a breaking heart, then died
away in a long-drawn sob.

'Well I be danged!' Bettles turned up the collar of his mackinaw jacket
and stared about him helplessly.

'It's a gloryus game yer runnin', Kid,' cried Lon McFane. 'All the
percentage of the house an' niver a bit to the man that's buckin'. The
Devil himself'd niver tackle such a cinch--and damned if I do.' There
were chuckles, throttled in gurgling throats, and winks brushed away
with the frost which rimed the eyelashes, as the men climbed the
ice-notched bank and started across the street to the Post. But the
long howl had drawn nearer, invested with a new note of menace. A woman
screamed round the corner. There was a cry of, 'Here he comes!' Then an
Indian boy, at the head of half a dozen frightened dogs, racing with
death, dashed into the crowd. And behind came Yellow Fang, a bristle of
hair and a flash of gray. Everybody but the Yankee fled.

The Indian boy had tripped and fallen. Bettles stopped long enough to
grip him by the slack of his furs, then headed for a pile of cordwood
already occupied by a number of his comrades. Yellow Fang, doubling
after one of the dogs, came leaping back. The fleeing anima