behind. It seemed years ago, and even further away was the vague recollection of how he'd cared. How horribly frightened he'd been! Wasn't he frightened now? No. It was only a dull curiosity that turned him round at last to see what it was that made the Colonel peg out this time. He was always peggin' out. Yes, there he was, stoppin' to stroke himself. Trail-man? An old woman! Fit only for the chimneycorner. And even when they went on again he kept saying to himself as he bent to the galling strain, “An old woman -just an old woman!" till he made a refrain of the words, and in the level places marched to the tune. After that, whatever else his vague thought went off upon, it came back to "An old woman-just an old woman!" "I don't believe we're going to put this job through." Now this was treason. Any trail-man may think that twenty times a day, but no one ought to say it. The boy set his teeth and his eyes closed. The whole thing was suddenly harder-doubt of the issue had been born into the world. But he opened his eyes again. The Colonel had carefully poured out some of the rice into the smoky water of the pan. What was the fool doing? Such a little left, and making a second supper? Only that morning the Boy had gone a long way when mentally he called the boss of the Big Chimbey Camp “an old woman." By night he was saying in his heart, "The Colonel's a fool." His partner caught the look that matched the thought. "No more second helpin's," he said in self-defence; "this'll freeze into cakes for luncheon." No answer. No implied apology for that look. In the tone his partner had come to dread, the Colonel began: "If we don't strike a settlement to-morrow-" "Don't talk!” The Boy's tired arm fell on the handle of the frying-pan. Over it went-rice, water, and all in the fire. The culprit sprang up speechless with dismay, enraged at the loss of the food he was hungry for enraged at "the fool fry-pan"enraged at the fool Colonel for balancing it so badly. A column of steam and smoke rose into the frosty air between the two men. As it cleared away a little the Boy could see the Colonel's bloodshot eyes. The expression was ill to meet. When they crouched down again, with the damped-out fire between them, a sense of utter loneliness fell upon each man's heart. It was with an effort that he remembered there had been a time when they had been uncomfortable because they hadn't washed their faces. Now, one man was content to let the very skin go if he could keep the flesh on his face, and one was little concerned even for that. Life-life! To push on and come out alive. The Colonel had come to that point where he resented the Boy's staying power, terrified at the indomitable young life in him. Yes, the Colonel began to feel old, and to think with vague wrath of the insolence of youth. Each man fell to considering what he would do, how he would manage if he were alone. And there ceased to be any terror in the thought. "If it wasn't for him"-so and so; till in the gradual deadening of judgment all the hardship was somehow your partner's fault. Your nerves made him responsible even for the snow and the wind. By-and-by he was The Enemy. Not but what each had occasional moments of lucidity, and drew back from the pit they were bending over. But the realisation would fade. No longer did even the wiser of the two remember that this is that same abyss out of which slowly, painfully, the race has climbed. With the lessened power to keep from falling in, the terror of it lessened. Many strange things grew natural. It was no longer difficult or even shocking to conceive of one's partner giving out and falling by the way. Although playing about the thought, the one thing that not even the Colonel was able actually to realise, was the imminent probability of death for himself. Imagination always pictured the other fellow down, one's self somehow forging ahead. Then it was, that a great tide of longing swept over the Boy-a flood of passionate desire for more of this doubtful blessing, life. All the bitter hardship-why, how sweet it was, after all, to battle and to overcome! It was only this lying helpless, trapped, that was evil. The endless Trail? Why, it was only the coming to the end that a man minded. Suddenly the beauty that for days had been veiled shone out. Nothing in all the earth was glorious with the glory of the terrible white North. And he had only just been wakened to it. Here, now, lying in his grave, had come this special revelation of the rapture of living, and the splendour of the visible universe. The sky over his head-he had called it "a mean outlook," and turned away. It was the same sky that bent over him now with a tenderness that made him lift his cramped arms with tears, as a sick child might to its mother. The haloed sun with his attendant dogs-how little the wonder had touched him! Never had he seen them so dim and sad as tonight.... saying good-bye to one who loved the sun. The great frozen road out of sight below, road that came winding, winding down out of the Arctic Circle-what other highway so majestic, mysterious?-shining and beckoning on. An earthly Milky Way, leading to the golden paradise he had been travelling towards since summer. They ate supper studiously avoiding each other's eyes. In the background of the Boy's mind: "He saved my life, but he ran no risk. . . . And I saved his. We're quits." In the Colonel's, vague, insistent, stirred the thought, "I might have left him there to rot, half-way up the precipice. Oh, he'd go! And he'd take the sled! No!" His vanished strength flowed back upon a tide of rage. Only one sleeping-bag, one kettle, one axe. one pair of snow-shoes . . one gun! No, by the living Lord! not while I have a gun. Where's my gun?" He looked about guiltily, under his lowered lids. What? No! Yes! It was gone! Who packed at the last camp? Why, he -himself, and he'd left it behind. "Then it was because I didn't see it; the Boy took care I shouldn't see it! Very likely he buried it so I shouldn't see it! He-yes-if I refuse to go on, he-" And the Boy, seeing without looking, taking in every move, every shade in the mood of the broken-spirited man, ready to die here, like a dog, in the snow, instead of pressing on as long as he could crawl-the Boy, in a fervor of silent rage, called him that "meanest word in the language-a quitter." And as, surreptitiously, he took in the vast discouragement of the older man, there was nothing in the Boy's changed heart to say, "Poor fellow! if he can't go on, I'll stay and die with him"; but only, "He's got to go on! . . . and if he refuses well" He felt about in his deadened brain,, and the best he could bring forth was: "I won't leave him-yet." A mighty river-jam had forced them up on the low range of hills. It was about midnight to judge by the moon -clear of snow and the wind down. The Boy straightened up at a curious sight just below them. Something black in the moonlight. The Colonel paused, looked down, and passed his hand over his eyes. The Boy had seen the thing first, and had said to himself, "Looks like a sled, but it's a vision. It's come to seeing things now." When he saw the Colonel stop and stare, he threw down his rope and began to laugh, for there below were the blackened remains of a big fire, silhouetted sharply on the snow. "Looks like we've come to a camp, Boss!" He hadn't called the Colone! by the old nickname for many a day. He stood there laughing in an idiotic kind of way, wrapping his stiff hands in his parki, Indian fashion, and looking down to the level of the ancient river terrace, where the weather-stained old Indian sled was sharply etched on the moonlit whiteness. Just a sled lying in the moonlight. But the change that can be wrought in a man's heart upon sight of a human sign! it may be idle to speak of that to any but those who have travelled the desolate ways of the North. Side by side the two men went down the slope, slid and slipped and couldn't stop themselves, till they were below the landmark. Looking up, they saw that a piece of soiled canvas or a skin, held down with a drift-log, fell from under the sled, portière-wise from the top of the terrace straight down to the sheltered level, where the camp fire had been. Coming close they saw the curtain was not canvas, but dressed deer "Indians!" said the Colonel. But with the rubbing out of other distinctions this, too, was curiously faint. Just so there were human beings it seemed enough. Within four feet of the deerskin door the Colonel stopped, shot through by a sharp misgiving. What was behind? A living man's camp, or a dead man's tomb? Succour or some stark picture of defeat, and of their own oncoming doom? The Colonel stood stock-still waiting for the Boy. For the first time in many days even he hung back. He seemed to lack the courage to be the one to extinguish hope by the mere drawing of a curtain from a snow-drift's face. The Kentuckian pulled himself together and went forward. He lifted his hand to the deerskin, but his fingers shook so he couldn't take hold: "Hello!" he called. No sound. Again: "Hello!" "Who's there?" The two outside turned and looked into each other's faces -but if you want to know all the moment meant, you must travel the Winter Trail. A TRAFALGAR SQUARE MEETING From The Convert.' Copyright, The Macmillan Company and used here by permission of the publishers. In front of the little row of women on the plinth a gaunt figure in brown serge was waving her arms. What she was saying was blurred in the general uproar. "You must be sure and explain everything to me, Geoffrey," said the girl. "This is to be an important chapter in my education." Merrily and without a shadow of misgiving she spoke in jest a truer word than she dreamed. He fell in with. her mood. "Well, I rather gather that he's been criticizing the late Government, and the Liberals have made it hot for him." "I shall never be able to hear unless we get nearer,” said Jean, anxiously. "There's a very rough element in front there—” |