th him came his three giant
malamutes, wolf-gray, shaggy, and silent like their master. He eyed the
drooping, white-robed forest and the desolate ridges that shut him in,
then said, in a voice harsh from disuse:

"Hello, people! Anything happened yet?"

He made it a practice to speak aloud whenever he thought of it, for the
hush of an arctic winter plays pranks with a person's mind, and there is
a certain effect of sanity in spoken words, senseless though they be.

After a moment he repeated his greeting: "Good morning, I said. Can't
you answer?" Then his cheeks flamed above his heavy beard and he yelled,
loudly, "_Good morning_, you ----! Can't you say anything?" He glared
reproachfully at a giant spruce from the lower limbs of which depended
the quarters of several caribou. "Tom, you ain't gone back on me? Say
hello. You and me are friends. Speak up!" After a time he shook his
head, murmuring: "It's no use. I've got to make all the noise there is.
If it would only blow--or something. I'd like to hear the wind."

He strode toward the prospect hole, the dogs following sedately, their
feet making no sound in the snow. They, too, felt the weight of
isolation and never left his side. Arriving at the dump, McGill stood
motionless beside the windlass for a long time, staring into nothingness
with eyes that were strained and miserable. When the cold bit him he
roused himself and addressed the steam-filled opening dispiritedly:

"So, you didn't freeze up on me. That's good. I'll get bed-rock to-day
and show you up for a dirty cheat. Pay! Bah! there ain't none!"

He descended a ladder at one end of the shaft, gathered the charred
logs, tied them into a bundle with the end of the windlass rope, then,
mounting the ladder, hoisted them to the surface. Next, hooking on the
ungainly wooden bucket, he lowered it, after which he descended for a
second time.

There began a long and monotonous series of ascents and descents, for
every bucket of gravel meant two journeys the full depth of the pit. It
was a tedious and primitive process, involving a tremendous waste of
effort, but he was methodical, and each time the tub rose it carried a
burden sufficient to tax the strength of two men. He handled it easily,
however, and by midday had removed the thawed ground and scraped a
sample from close to frost. He laid a light fire, then took the heaping
gold-pan under his arm and set off for his cabin, accompanied by the
malamutes.

When