like hot iron, and had pulled off
patches of skin and flesh. Brokaw looked, and hunched his shoulders.
His lips were blue. His cheeks, ears, and nose were frost-bitten. There
was a curious thickness in his voice when he spoke.

"Thoreau lives on this creek," he said. "How much farther is it?"

"Fifteen or sixteen miles," replied Billy. "You'll last just about
five, Brokaw. I won't last that long unless you take these things off
and give me the use of my arms."

"To knock out my brains when I ain't looking," growled Brokaw. "I
guess--before long--you'll be willing to tell where the Indian's shack
is." He kicked his way through a drift of snow to the smoother surface
of the stream. There was a breath of wind in their faces, and Billy
bowed his head to it. In the hours of his greatest loneliness and
despair Billy had kept up his fighting spirit by thinking of pleasant
things, and now, as he followed in Brokaw's trail, he began to think of
home. It was not hard for him to bring up visions of the girl wife who
would probably never know how he had died. He forgot Brokaw. He
followed in the trail mechanically, failing to notice that his captor's
pace was growing steadily slower, and that his own feet were dragging
more and more like leaden weights. He was back among the old hills
again, and the sun was shining, and he heard laughter and song. He saw
Jeanne standing at the gate in front of the little white cottage,
smiling at him, and waving Baby Jeanne's tiny hand at him as he looked
back over his shoulder from down the dusty road. His mind did not often
travel as far as the mining camp, and he had completely forgotten it
now. He no longer felt the sting and pain of the intense cold. It was
Brokaw who brought him back into the reality of things. The sergeant
stumbled and fell in a drift, and Billy fell over him. For a moment the
two men sat half buried in the snow, looking at each other without
speaking. Brokaw moved first. He rose to his feet with an effort. Billy
made an attempt to follow him. After three efforts he gave it up, and
blinked up into Brokaw's face with a queer laugh. The laugh was almost
soundless. There had come a change in Brokaw's face. Its determination
and confidence were gone. At last the iron mask of the Law was broken,
and there shone through it something of the emotions and the
brotherhood of man. He was fumbling in one of his pockets, and drew out
the key to the handcuffs. It was a small key, and h