e of tears.
He reached out his hand for the cigarette and drew the smoke deep into
his lungs again and again.

"I have not smoked for a long time," he said at last, in a low calm
voice. "For a very long time."

"Nor eaten, from your looks," Shorty added gruffly.

Smoke nodded and waved his hand at the ptarmigan feathers that lay all
about.

"Not until recently," he returned. "Do you know, I'd like a cup of
coffee. It will taste strange. Also flapjacks and a strip of bacon."

"And beans?" Shorty tempted.

"They would taste heavenly. I find I am quite hungry again."

While the one cooked and the other ate, they told briefly what had
happened to them in the days since their separation.

"The Klondike was breakin' up," Shorty concluded his recital, "an' we
just had to wait for open water. Two polin' boats, six other men--you
know 'em all, an' crackerjacks--an' all kinds of outfit. An' we've sure
been a-comin'--polin', linin' up, and portagin'. But the falls'll stick
'em a solid week. That's where I left 'em a-cuttin' a trail over the
tops of the bluffs for the boats. I just had a sure natural hunch to
keep a-comin'. So I fills a pack with grub an' starts. I knew I'd find
you a-driftin' an' all in."

Smoke nodded, and put forth his hand in a silent grip. "Well, let's get
started," he said.

"Started hell!" Shorty exploded. "We stay right here an' rest you up an'
feed you up for a couple of days."

Smoke shook his head.

"If you could just see yourself," Shorty protested.

And what he saw was not nice. Smoke's face, wherever the skin showed,
was black and purple and scabbed from repeated frost-bite. The cheeks
were fallen in, so that, despite the covering of beard, the upper rows
of teeth ridged the shrunken flesh. Across the forehead and about the
deep-sunk eyes, the skin was stretched drum-tight, while the scraggly
beard, that should have been golden, was singed by fire and filthy with
camp-smoke.

"Better pack up," Smoke said. "I'm going on."

"But you're feeble as a kid baby. You can't hike. What's the rush?"

"Shorty, I am going after the biggest thing in the Klondike, and I can't
wait. That's all. Start packing. It's the biggest thing in the world.
It's bigger than lakes of gold and mountains of gold, bigger than
adventure, and meat-eating, and bear-killing."

Shorty sat with bulging eyes. "In the name of the Lord, what is it?" he
queried huskily. "Or are you just simple loco?"

"No, I'm all righ