thers that forgot. Moose Head and Three Salmon left the
white man Joe to lie in the snow. Let them forget no more. With the
light of day shall they go forth and break trail. Ye have heard the
law. Look well, lest ye break it.' Sitka Charley found it beyond him to
keep the line close up. From Moose Head and Three Salmon, who broke
trail in advance, to Kah-Chucte, Gowhee, and Joe, it straggled out over
a mile. Each staggered, fell or rested as he saw fit.

The line of march was a progression through a chain of irregular halts.
Each drew upon the last remnant of his strength and stumbled onward
till it was expended, but in some miraculous way there was always
another last remnant. Each time a man fell it was with the firm belief
that he would rise no more; yet he did rise, and again and again. The
flesh yielded, the will conquered; but each triumph was a tragedy. The
Indian with the frozen foot, no longer erect, crawled forward on hand
and knee. He rarely rested, for he knew the penalty exacted by the
frost.

Even Mrs. Eppingwell's lips were at last set in a stony smile, and her
eyes, seeing, saw not. Often she stopped, pressing a mittened hand to
her heart, gasping and dizzy.

Joe, the white man, had passed beyond the stage of suffering. He no
longer begged to be let alone, prayed to die; but was soothed and
content under the anodyne of delirium. Kah-Chucte and Gowhee dragged
him on roughly, venting upon him many a savage glance or blow. To them
it was the acme of injustice.

Their hearts were bitter with hate, heavy with fear. Why should they
cumber their strength with his weakness? To do so meant death; not to
do so--and they remembered the law of Sitka Charley, and the rifle.

Joe fell with greater frequency as the daylight waned, and so hard was
he to raise that they dropped farther and farther behind. Sometimes all
three pitched into the snow, so weak had the Indians become. Yet on
their backs was life, and strength, and warmth.

Within the flour sacks were all the potentialities of existence. They
could not but think of this, and it was not strange, that which came to
pass. They had fallen by the side of a great timber jam where a
thousand cords of firewood waited the match. Near by was an air hole
through the ice. Kah-Chucte looked on the wood and the water, as did
Gowhee; then they looked at each other.

Never a word was spoken. Gowhee struck a fire; Kah-Chucte filled a tin
cup with water and heated it; Jo