use more. So they ate
their scanty supper without tea, fed the dogs on frozen porridge, and
huddling together for warmth during the long hours of bleak darkness
were thankful enough to welcome the gray dawn that brought them to an
end.

For three days more they toiled over the terrible plateau, driven to
long detours by insurmountable obstacles, buffeted and lashed by fierce
snow-squalls and ice-laden gales, but ever pushing onward with unabated
courage, expecting with each hour to find themselves descending into the
valley of the Chilcat River. Two of the dogs driven by Serge broke down
so completely that they were mercifully shot. The third dog was added to
Jalap Coombs's team, and the load was divided between the remaining
sledges, while the now useless one was used as firewood. After that Phil
plodded on in advance, and Serge drove the leading team.

The fourth day of this terrible work was one of leaden clouds and bitter
winds. The members of the little party were growing desperate with cold,
exhaustion, and hunger. Their wanderings had not brought them to a
timber-line, and as poor Phil faced the blast with bowed head and
chattering teeth it seemed to him that to be once more thoroughly warm
would be the perfection of human happiness.

It was already growing dusk, and he was anxiously casting about for the
sorry shelter of some bowlder behind which they might shiver away the
hours of darkness, when he came to the verge of a steep declivity. His
heart leaped as he glanced down its precipitous face; for, far below, he
saw a dark mass that he knew must be timber. They could not descend at
that point; but he thought he saw one that appeared more favorable a
little further on, and hastened in that direction. He was already some
distance ahead of the slow-moving sledges, and meant to wait for them as
soon as he discovered a place from which the descent could be made.

Suddenly a whirling, blinding cloud of snow swept down on him with such
fury that to face it and breathe was impossible. Thinking it but a
squall, he turned his back and stood motionless, waiting for it to pass
over. Instead of so doing, it momentarily increased in violence and
density. A sudden darkness came with the storm, and as he anxiously
started back to meet the sledges he could not see one rod before him. He
began to shout, and in a few minutes had the satisfaction of hearing an
answering cry. Directly afterwards Serge loomed through the driving