dogs on several each of beans a day would travel slowly nevertheless the men who travelled with them on a pinch would have the dogs themselves to eat but the men who remained when the pinch came would have no dogs it was for this reason that daylight and took the more desperate chance they could not do less nor did they care to do less the days passed and the winter began into the spring that comes like a of suddenness it was the spring of that was preparing each day the sim rose farther east of south remained longer in the sky and set farther to the west march ended and april began and daylight and lean and wondered what had become of their two comrades every ia burning in generous for good measure the time was long since past when they should have returned without doubt they had met with disaster the party had considered the possibility of disaster for one man and that had been the principal reason for the two in directions but that disaster should have come to both of them was the final blow in the meantime hoping against hope daylight and out a meagre existence the had not yet begun so they were able to gather the snow about the ruined and melt it in pots and and gold allowed to stand for a while when off a thin deposit of was foimd on the of the vessels this was the the trace of it scattered through thousands of yards of snow also in this occurred at intervals a water soaked tea leaf and there were in it fragments of earth and litter but the farther they worked away from the site of the the thinner became the trace of flour the smaller the deposit of was the older man and he weakened first so that he came to lie up most of the time in his an occasional tree kept them alive this fell upon daylight and it was hard work with but thirty of he dared not risk a miss and since his rifle was a he was compelled to shoot the small creatures through the head there were very few of them and days went by without seeing one when he did see one he took infinite precautions he would stalk it for hours a score of times with arms that shook from weakness he would draw a sight on the animal and refrain from pulling the his was a thing of iron he was the master not till absolute was his did he shoot no matter how sharp the pangs of and desire for that morsel of chattering life he refused to burning take the slightest risk of a miss he bom that he was was gambling in the bigger way his life was the stake his cards were the and he played as only a big could play with infinite care with infinite precaution with infinite consideration as a result he never missed each shot meant a and though days elapsed between shots it never changed his method of play of the nothing was lost even the skins were boiled to make the bones into fragments that could be and swallowed daylight through the snow and found occasional patches of at the best were composed practically of seeds and water with a tough of skin about them but the he found were of the preceding year dry and and the nourishment they contained on the quantity scarcely better was the bark of young for an hour and swallowed after prodigious april drew toward its close and spring smote the land the days stretched out their length under the heat of the sim the snow began to melt while from down imder the snow arose the of tiny streams for twenty four hours the wind blew and in that twenty four the snow was diminished fully a foot in depth in the late the melting snow again so that its became ice capable of supporting a man s weight tiny white snow birds appeared from the south lingered a day and their journey into the north once high in the air looking for open water and ahead of the season a of wild northward and down by the river bank a of dwarf into bud these yoimg seemed to possess an encouraging took heart of hope though he was cast down again when daylight failed to find another of b d burning the sap was rising in the trees and daily the ca unseen became louder as the frozen land came back to life but the river held in its bonds of frost winter had been long months in them and not in a day were they to be broken not even by the of spring may came and stray last year s but harmless crawled out of rock and rotten logs began to and more and ducks flew overhead and still the river held by may tenth the ice of the with a great and snapping tore loose from the banks and rose three feet but it did not go down stream the lower up to where the flowed into it must first break and move on until then the ice of the could only rise higher and higher on the increasing flood beneath when the would break was two thousand miles away it flowed into sea and it was the ice conditions of sea that would determine when the could rid itself of the millions of tons of ice that its breast on the twelfth of may carrying their sleeping robes a an axe and the precious rifle the two men started down the river on the ice their plan was to gain to the boat they had seen so that at the first open water they it and drift with the stream to sixty mile in their weak condition without food the going was slow 