"

Slim was a failure; he stood for nothing in the world of achievement;
for all the difference that his going made, he might never have been
born. Then a thought as startling as the tangible appearance of some
ironic, grinning imp flashed to his mind. Who was he, Bruce Burt, to
criticise his partner, Slim? What more had he accomplished? How much
more difference would his own death make in anybody's life? His mother's
labored words came back with painful distinctness: "I've had such hopes
for you, my little boy. I've dreamed such dreams for you--I wanted to
see them all come true." An inarticulate sound came from him that was
both pain and self-disgust. He was close to twenty-eight--almost
thirty--and he'd spent the precious years "just bumming round." Nothing
to show for them but a little gold dust and the clothes he wore. He
wondered if his mother knew.

Her wedding ring was still in a faded velvet case that he kept among his
treasures. He never had seen a woman who had suggested ever so faintly
the thought that he should like to place it on her finger. There had
been women, of a kind--"Peroxide Louise," in Meadows, with her bovine
coquetry and loud-mouthed vivacity, yapping scandal up and down the
town, the transplanted product of a city's slums, not even loyal to the
man who had tried to raise her to his level.

Bruce never had considered marrying; the thought of it for himself
always made him smile. But why couldn't he--the thought now came
gradually, and grew--why _shouldn't_ he assume the responsibilities Slim
shirked if conditions were the same and help was still needed? In
expiation, perhaps, he could halfway make amends.

He'd write and mail the letter in Ore City as soon as he could snowshoe
out. He'd express them half the dust and tell them that 'twas Slim's.
He'd----"OO--oo--ough!" he shivered--he'd forgotten to stoke the fire.
Oh, well, a soogan would do him well enough.

He pulled a quilt from under Slim and wrapped it about his own
shoulders. Then he sat down again by the fireless stove and laid his
head on his folded arms upon the rough pine table. The still body on
the bunk grew stark while he slept, the swift-running river froze from
shore to shore, the snow piled in drifts, obliterating trails and
blocking passes, weighting the pines to the breaking point, while the
intense cold struck the chill of death into the balls of feathers
huddled for shelter under the flat branches of the spruces.