n-ina took up the work of hauling,
while I carried Marcel. Only they hauled Oolak instead of the outfit.
They hauled him for nigh on a month, and we lived on dog meat till it
got putrid, and even then didn't feel like giving it up. I didn't have
to worry a thing except for their sanity. You see, they were Indian for
all their grit, and--I just didn't know. It was tough, Doc! Oh, gee! it
was tough! And when you've read the stuff I've doped out for
headquarters you won't need me to talk if you've two cents of
imagination about you. If you'd asked me awhile back, when I asked you
about Nita, and my little girl, and you told me they were good and
happy, and crazy to have me back, as I said, I'd have cried like a kid.
Yes, and I guess you'd have needed a gun to hold me here while you
hacked those slabs off my feet. But it's right now. My head was never
clearer, and there's just one thought in it. It's to get back to
Deadwater."

The doctor listened with a surge of feeling driving through his heart.
His own words, the words he had told to the man whom he knew at the time
to be floundering on the edge of a complete mental breakdown, were
ringing through his brain. He had lied. He had had to lie. And now----

He took refuge in his pipe. He knew he would need it. He filled it from
the pouch which had become common between them and urged Steve to do the
same. In a few moments both men were smoking in an atmosphere of perfect
calm.

"You were pretty bad that time," Ross said steadily. "Yes, I don't guess
you know how bad you were."

"I think I do--now."

The doctor seemed to be absorbed in pressing down the tobacco in his
pipe. He struck another match.

"The strain had been so big the break must have come if you'd had to go
on," he said, blowing smoke till it partly obscured his patient's
unflinching eyes. "You were weak--physically. There was nothing to
support your nerve and brain. It was in your eyes. You scarcely
recognized us. You hardly knew what our presence meant to you. And,
later, the reaction made things even worse for you. A shock, and the
balance would have gone hopelessly. So--I lied to you!"

"You--lied to me?"

The pipe had been suddenly jerked from Steve's lips. He was sitting up.
A sudden fierce light had leapt to his eyes.

The Scotsman, too, had removed his pipe. His eyes were squarely
confronting the other. All his mental force and bodily energy were
summoned to his aid.

"Yes. I had to lie," he