d at night caught you by the heart and clamp it--Mon Dieu, how it
clamp! We crawl under the snow and lay in our bags of fur and wool, and
the dogs hug close to us. We were sorry for the dogs; and one died, and
then another, and there is nothing so dreadful as to hear the dogs
howl in the long night--it is like ghosts crying in an empty world. The
circle of the sun get smaller and smaller, till he only tramp along the
high edge of the north-west. We got to the river at last and found
the camp. There is one man dead--only one; but there were bones--ah,
m'sieu', you not guess what a thing it is to look upon the bones of men,
and know that--!"

Medallion put his hand on the old man's arm. "Wait a minute," he said.
Then he poured out coffee for both, and they drank before the rest was
told.

"It's a creepy story," said Medallion, "but go on."

"Well, the White Chief look at the dead man as he sit there in the snow,
with a book and a piece of paper beside him, and the pencil in the book.
The face is bent forward to the knees. The White Chief pick up the book
and pencil, and then kneel down and gaze up in the dead man's face, all
hard like stone and crusted with frost. I thought he would never stir
again, he look so long. I think he was puzzle. Then he turn and say to
me: 'So quiet, so awful, Galloir!' and got up. Well, but it was cold
then, and my head seemed big and running about like a ball of air. But
I light a spirit-lamp, and make some coffee, and he open the dead man's
book--it is what they call a diary--and begin to read. All at once I
hear a cry, and I see him drop the book on the ground, and go to the
dead man, and jerk his fist as if to strike him in the face. But he did
not strike."

Galloir stopped, and lighted his pipe, and was so long silent that
Medallion had to jog him into speaking. He puffed the smoke so that his
face was in the cloud, and he said through it: "No, he did not strike.
He get to his feet and spoke: 'God forgive her!' like that, and come and
take up the book again, and read. He eat and drunk, and read the book
again, and I know by his face that something more than cold was clamp
his heart.

"'Shall we bury him in the snow?' I say. 'No,' he spoke, 'let him sit
there till the Judgmen'. This is a wonderful book, Galloir,' he went
on. 'He was a brave man, but the rest--the rest!'--then under his breath
almost: 'She was so young--but a child.' I not understand that. We start
away soon, leaving