k; it shuffled, haltingly, with flexed knees and hanging shoulders,
the strides measuring inches only--a grisly burlesque upon senility.

Pausing in the circle, it mumbled thickly, with great effort, as though
gleaning words from infinite distance:

"Wild Pierre--frozen--buried--in--snow--hurry!" Then he straightened
and spoke strongly, his voice flooding the room:

"It's the mind, Pierre. Ha! ha! ha! The mind."

He cackled hideously, and plunged forward into a miner's arms.

It was many days before his delirium broke. Gradually he felt the
pressure of many bandages upon him, and the hunger of convalescence.
As he lay in his bunk the past came to him hazy and horrible; then the
hum of voices, one loud, insistent, and familiar.

He turned weakly, to behold Pierre propped in a chair by the stove,
frost-scarred and pale, but aggressive even in recuperation. He
gesticulated fiercely with a bandaged hand, hot in controversy with
some big-limbed, bearded strangers.

"Bah! You fellers no good--too beeg in the ches', too leetle in the
forehead. She'll tak' the heducate mans for stan' the 'ardsheep--lak'
me an' Meestaire Weelard."

NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE

Big George was drinking, and the activities of the little Arctic
mining camp were paralysed. Events invariably ceased their progress
and marked time when George became excessive, and now nothing of
public consequence stirred except the quicksilver, which was retiring
fearfully into its bulb at the song of the wind which came racing
over the lonesome, bitter, northward waste of tundra.

He held the centre of the floor at the Northern Club, and proclaimed
his modest virtues in a voice as pleasant as the cough of a
bull-walrus.

"Yes, me! Little Georgie! I did it. I've licked 'em all from
Herschel Island to Dutch Harbour, big uns and little uns. When they
didn't suit I made 'em over. I'm the boss carpenter of the Arctic
and I own this camp; don't I, Slim? Hey? Answer me!" he roared at
the emaciated bearer of the title, whose attention seemed wandering
from the inventory of George's startling traits toward a card game.

"Sure ye do," nervously smiled Slim, frightened out of a heart-solo
as he returned to his surroundings.

"Well, then, listen to what I'm saying. I'm the big chief of the
village, and when I'm stimulated and happy them fellers I don't like
hides out and lets me and Nature operate things. Ain't that right?"
He glared inquiringly