ife. Folsom hesitated, then he yielded to his
impulse, and the luxury of yielding made him drunk. He walked around
the sled, removing his mittens with his teeth as he went. Without a
word he seized his companion by the throat and throttled him until his
eyes protruded and his face grew black and bloated. He relaxed his
stiff fingers finally, then he shook the fellow back to consciousness.

"Just as I thought," he cried, harshly. "That's not the gulch you
pointed out before. You're lost and you won't admit it."

Harkness pawed the air and fought for his breath. There was abject
terror in his eyes. He reeled away, but saw there was no safety in
flight.

"Own up!" Folsom commanded.

"You--said this was the way," the pathfinder whimpered. "You made
me--turn off--" Folsom uttered a growl and advanced a step, whereupon
his victim gurgled: "D-don't touch me! That's the Imnachuck, so help
me God! I'm--I'm almost sure it is."

"_Almost_!" The speaker stooped for his mittens and shook the snow out
of them; he was still struggling to control himself. "Look here, Mr.
Know-It-All, I've never been here before, and you have; somewhere in
your thick skull there must be some faint remembrance of the country.
You got us into this fix, and I'm going to give you one more chance
to get us out of it. Don't try to think with your head, let your feet
think for you, and maybe they'll carry you to the right gulch. If they
don't--" Folsom scanned the brooding heavens and his lips compressed.
"We're in for a storm and--we'll never weather it. Take one look while
there's light to see by, then turn your feet loose and pray that they
lead you right, for if they don't, by God, I'll cut you loose!"

It soon proved that memory lay neither in Harkness's head nor in his
feet; when he had veered aimlessly about for half an hour, evidently
fearing to commit himself to a definite course, and when the wind came
whooping down, rolling a twilight smother ahead of it, Folsom turned
his dogs into the nearest depression and urged them to a run. The
grade increased, soon brittle willow-tops brushed against the speeding
sled: this brush grew higher as the two men, blinded now by the gale,
stumbled onward behind the team. They emerged from the gulch into a
wider valley, after a while, and a mile further on the dogs burst
through a grove of cottonwoods and fetched up before a lighted cabin
window.

Harkness pulled back his parka hood and cried, boastfully: "Wh