ow of a smile touched her mouth,
though her lashes were wet. "And he was, Mr. Banks," she said brightly.
"He was. I know, because I was there."

Banks picked up his hat and rose to his feet. "We were all mighty proud of
Dave," he said. "There wasn't one of us wouldn't have done his level best
to reach him that last stampede; but I'm glad the chance came to Hollis
Tisdale. There wasn't another man in Alaska could have done what he did.
Yes, I'm mighty glad it was Tisdale who--found him." He paused, holding
his hat over the crippled hand, then added: "I suppose you never knew what
it means to be cold."

She rose. The smile had left her lips, and she stood looking into his
withered face with wide eyes. "I mean so cold you don't care what happens.
So cold you can lie down in your tracks, in a sixty-mile-an-hour blizzard
and go to sleep."

"No." She shivered, and her voice was almost a whisper. "I am afraid not."

"Then you can't begin to imagine what Tisdale did. You can't see him
fighting his way through mountains, mushing ahead on the winter trail,
breaking road for his worn-out huskies, alone day after day, with just
poor Dave strapped to the sled."

She put her hands to her ears. "Please, please don't say any more," she
begged. "I know--all--about it."

"Even about the wolves?"

She dropped her hands, bracing herself a little on the table, and turned
her face, looking, with that manner of one helplessly trapped, around the
room.

"Even about the wolves?" he persisted.

"No. No," she admitted at last.

He nodded. "I thought likely not. Hollis never told that. It goes against
his grain to be made much of. He and Dave was cut out of the same block.
But last night in the lobby to the hotel, I happened on a fellow that met
him in the pass above Seward. There were four of 'em mushing through to
some mines beyond the Susitna. It was snowing like blazes when they heard
those wolves, and pretty soon Tisdale's dogs came streaking by through the
smother. Then a gun fired. It kept up, with just time enough between shots
to load, until they came up to him. He had stopped where a kind of small
cave was scooped in the mountainside and put the sled in and turned the
huskies loose. He had had the time, too, to make a fire in front of the
hole, but when the boys got there, his wood was about burned out, and the
wolves had got Dave's old husky, Jack. He had done his best to help hold
off the pack. There's no telling how many H