Charlevoix county herald., 1921-01-21

the house down to Destroy" he ex-
planned. I'm learning to know this
mOuntain-breed, Lennox. / kept II in
my pocket where / could fight for ii.
ut any minute"
CranstOn had been mistaken, after
all. I'm thinking that in fear of himself
Dan would be afraid to keep the
packet on his person, and would crav-
pnly conceal II in the house He would
have been even more surprised to
know that Dan had lived in constant
hope of meeting Cranston on the
ridges, showing him what 1t contained.
and fighting him for it. hands To
hands. And even yet. perhaps the day
would come when Cranston would
know at last that Snowbird's words.
after the fight of long ago. were true.
The twilight was falling over the
snow. so Snowbird and Dan tuvned to
the toll of building a sled.
The snow was steel-gray in the
moonlight when the little party made
their start down the long trail. Their
preparations, simple and crude as they
were. had taken hours of ceaseless
labor on the part of the three. The
ak. Its edge dulled by the fame and
its handle burned away, had been
cooled In the snow, and with one
sound arm, LennOx had driven the hot
nails that Snowbird gathered from
the ashes of one of the outbuildings.
- a.
glowed red in the darkness.
Dan had cut the green limbs Of the
trees and planed them with his AK.
The sled had been completed. handles
attached for pushing It, and a piece of
fence wire fastened with nails as
rope to pull It, The warm macknaws
Of both Of them as well ms the one
blanket that Lennox had saved from
the fire were wrapped about the old
frOntiersman's wasted body-Dan and
Snowbird hoping to keep warm by the
exercise Of propelling the sled. Ex-
cept for the dull ax and the half
empty pistol. their only equipment
was single charred pot for melting
snow that Dan had recovered from
the ashes of the kitchen.
The three had worked almost in
silence. Words didn't help now. They
wasted no sorely needed breath But
they did have one minute 10 talk when
they got 10 the top of the little ridge
that had overlooked the house.
We'll travel mostly at night" Dan
told them. I'VE can see In the snow.
and by taking our rest in the daytime.
when the sun is bright and warm. we
can save our strength. We won't have
to keep such big fires then-and nj
night our exertioD Will keep us as
warm as we can hope for Getting up
all night to cut green wood with this
dull ax In the snow would break us TO
pieces very soon. for remember that
we haven't any food. know how to
build 2 fire even In the snOw-es-
pecia II ! ca. find the dead. dry
heart of rotten log-but II isn't any
fun to keep II going with green wood.
We don't want to have TO spend any
more of our strength stripping off wet
bark and hacking at saplings than we
can help and that means we'd better
do our resting In the heat of the day.
After ALL it's fight against starva-
ton more than anything else"
..Just think" the girl told them. re-
preaching herself, ''if I had shot
straight at that wolf today. we could
have gone back and got his body. II
might have carried us through"
Neither Of the others as much as
looked surprised at these amazing re-
grets over the lost. unsavory flesh of
wolf. They were up against reali-
ties, and they didn't mince words.