by this wager the volunteer mail-men cut
down their load. They left their stove and tent and grub-box behind,
planning to make a road-house every night except during the long jump
from the Imnachuck to Crooked River. They argued that it was worth a
hundred dollars to sleep once under the open sky.

The fruits of that sporting enterprise were bitter; the trader won his
bet, but he never cashed it in. Somewhere out on the high barrens a
storm swooped down upon the travelers. To one who has never faced an
Arctic hurricane it seems incredible that strong men have died within
call of cozy cabins or have frozen with the lashings of their sleds
but half untied. Yet it is true. The sudden awful cold, the shouting
wind, the boiling, blinding, suffocating rush of snow; the sweaty
clothes that harden into jointless armor; the stiff mittens and the
clumsy hands inside--these tell a tale to those who know.

The two mail-carriers managed to get into their sleeping-bags, but the
gale, instead of drifting them over with a protective mantle of snow,
scoured the mountain-side bare to the brittle reindeer moss, and they
began to freeze where they lay. Some twenty hours they stood it, then
they rose and plunged ahead of the hurricane like bewildered cattle.
The strongest man gave up first and lay down, babbling of things
to eat. His companion buried him, still alive, and broke down the
surrounding willow-tops for a landmark, then he staggered on. By some
miracle of good luck, or as a result of some unsuspected power of
resistance, he finally came raving into the Crooked River Road-house.
When the wind subsided they hurried him to Nome, but he was
frightfully maimed and as a result of his amputations he lay gabbling
until long after the spring break-up.

Folsom did not write again. In fact, when no word came from Lois, he
bitterly regretted the letters he had written. He heard indirectly
from her; new-comers from Nome told him that she was well, but that
was all. It was enough. He did not wish to learn more.

Spring found him with barely enough money to pay his way back. He was
blue, bitter, disheartened, but despite the certainty that his
wife had forsaken him he still cherished a flickering hope of a
reconciliation. Strangely enough he considered no scheme of vengeance
upon the other man, for he was sane and healthy, and he loved Lois too
well to spoil her attempt at happiness.

It so happened that the Arctic ice opened up later thi