choked them.
Meanwhile they continued to glow inwardly at a white heat.

Cantwell no longer felt the desire merely to match his strength against
Grant's; the estrangement had become too wide for that; a physical
victory would have been flat and tasteless; he craved some deeper
satisfaction. He began to think of the ax--just how or when or why he
never knew. It was a thin-bladed, polished thing of frosty steel, and
the more he thought of it the stronger grew his impulse to rid himself
once for all of that presence which exasperated him. It would be very
easy, he reasoned; a sudden blow, with the weight of his shoulders
behind it--he fancied he could feel the bit sink into Grant's flesh,
cleaving bone and cartilages in its course--a slanting downward stroke,
aimed at the neck where it joined the body, and he would be forever
satisfied. It would be ridiculously simple. He practiced in the gloom of
evening as he felled spruce trees for firewood; he guarded the ax
religiously; it became a living thing which urged him on to violence. He
saw it standing by the tent fly when he closed his eyes to sleep; he
dreamed of it; he sought it out with his eyes when he first awoke. He
slid it loosely under the sled lashings every morning, thinking that its
use could not long be delayed.

As for Grant, the carbine dwelt forever in his mind, and his fingers
itched for it. He secretly slipped a cartridge into the chamber, and
when an occasional ptarmigan offered itself for a target he saw the
white spot on the breast of Johnny's reindeer parka, dancing ahead of
the Lyman bead.

The solitude had done its work; the North had played its grim comedy to
the final curtain, making sport of men's affections and turning love to
rankling hate. But into the mind of each man crept a certain craftiness.
Each longed to strike, but feared to face the consequences. It was
lonesome, here among the white hills and the deathly silences, yet they
reflected that it would be still more lonesome if they were left to keep
step with nothing more substantial than a memory. They determined,
therefore, to wait until civilization was nearer, meanwhile rehearsing
the moment they knew was inevitable. Over and over in their thoughts
each of them enacted the scene, ending it always with the picture of a
prostrate man in a patch of trampled snow which grew crimson as the
other gloated.

They paused at Bethel Mission long enough to load with dried salmon,
then made the