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elain, he had been nicknamed "Wall-Eye"; but, owing to his general popularity, combined with the emphatic views he held on that particular subject, the name had been mitigated to Walley. The two were hauling in supplies for Conroy's Camp, on Little Ottanoonsis Lake. Silently, but for the clank and creak of the harness, and the soft "thut, thut" of the trodden snow, the little procession toiled on through the soundless desolation. Between the trees--naked birches and scattered, black-green firs--filtered the lonely, yellowish-violet light of the fading winter afternoon. When the light had died into ghostly grey along the corridors of the forest, the teams rounded a turn of the trail, and began to descend the steep slope which led down to Joe Godding's solitary cabin on the edge of Burnt Brook Meadows. Presently the dark outline of the cabin came into view against the pallor of the open clearing. But there was no light in the window. No homely pungency of wood-smoke breathed welcome on the bitter air. The cabin looked startlingly deserted. "Whoa!" commanded McWha, sharply, and glanced round at Johnson with an angry misgiving in his eyes. The teams came to a stop with a shiver of all their bells. Then, upon the sudden stillness, arose the faint sound of a child's voice, crying hopelessly. "Something wrong down yonder!" growled McWha, his expectations of a hot supper crumbling into dust. As he spoke, Walley Johnson sprang past him and went loping down the hill with long, loose strides like a moose. Red McWha followed very deliberately with the teams. He resented anything emotional. And he was prepared to feel himself aggrieved. When he reached the cabin door the sound of weeping had stopped. Inside he found Walley Johnson on his knees before the stove, hurriedly lighting a fire. Wrapped in his coat, and clutching his arm as if afraid he might leave her, stood a tiny, flaxen-haired child, perhaps five years old. The cabin was cold, almost as cold as the snapping night outside. Along the middle of the floor, with bedclothes from the bunk heaped awkwardly upon it in the little one's efforts to warm it back to responsive life, sprawled rigidly the lank body of Joe Godding. Red McWha stared for a moment in silence, then stooped, examined the dead man's face, and felt his breast. "Deader'n a herring!" he muttered. "Yes! the poor old shike-poke!" answered Johnson, without looking up from his task. "He
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