hman remarked. "If she breaks on us we'll
be hung up in the hills and starve before the creeks lower enough to get
home."

Small streams freeze solidly to the bottom and the spring waters wear
downward from the surface. Thus they found the creek awash, and,
following farther, it became necessary to wade in many places. They came
to a box canon where the winter snow had packed, forming a dam, and, as
there was no way of avoiding it without retreating a mile and climbing
the ragged bluff, they floundered through, their packs aloft, the slushy
water armpit-deep.

"We'd ought 'a' took the ridges," Buck chattered. Language slips forth
phonetically with fatigue.

"No! Feller's apt to get lost. Drop into the wrong creek--come out fifty
mile away."

"I bet the others do, anyhow," Buck held, stubbornly. "It's lots easier
going."

"Wish Sully would, but he's too wise. No such luck for me." A long
pause. "I reckon I'll have to kill him before he gets back!" Again they
relapsed into miles of silence.

Crowley's fancy fed on vengeance, hatred livening his work-worn
faculties. He nursed carefully the memory of their quarrel, for it
helped him travel and took his mind from the agony of movement and this
aching sleep-hunger.

The feet of both men felt like fearful, shapeless masses; their packs
leaned backward sullenly, chafing raw shoulder sores; and always the
ravenous mosquitoes stung and stung, and whined and whined.

At an exclamation the leader turned. Miles back, silhouetted far above
on the comb of the ridge, they descried two tiny figures.

"That's what we'd ought 'a' done. They'll beat us in."

"No, they won't. They'll have to camp to-night or get lost, while we can
keep goin'. We can't go wrong down here; can't do no more than drownd."

Buck groaned at the thought of the night hours. He couldn't stand it,
that was all! Enough is enough of anything and he had gone the limit.
Just one more mile and he would quit; yet he did not.

All through that endless phantom night they floundered, incased in
freezing garments, numb and heavy with sleep, but morning found them at
the banks of the main stream.

"You look like hell," said Buck, laughing weakly. His mirth relaxed his
nerves suddenly, till he giggled and hiccoughed hysterically. Nor could
he stop for many minutes, the while Crowley stared at him apathetically
from a lined and shrunken countenance, his features standing out
skeleton-like. The younger man evidenc