They pushed on another mile.  When the Colonel at last called the halt, the Boy sank down on the sled too exhausted to speak.  But it had grown to be a practice with them not to trust themselves to talk at this hour.  The Colonel would give the signal to stop, simply by ceasing to push the sled that the boy was wearily dragging.  The Boy had invariably been feeling (just as the Colonel had before, during his shift in front) that the man behind wasn’t helping all he might, whereupon followed a vague, consciously unreasonable, but wholly irresistible rage against the partner of his toil.  But however much the man at the back was supposed to spare himself, the man in front had never yet failed to know when the impetus from behind was really removed.

The Boy sat now on the sled, silent, motionless, while the Colonel felled and chopped and brought the wood.  Then the Boy dragged himself up, made the fire and the beef-tea.  But still no word even after that reviving cup—­the usual signal for a few remarks and more social relations to be established.  Tonight no sound out of either.  The Colonel changed his footgear and the melted snow in the pot began to boil noisily.  But the Boy, who had again betaken himself to the sled, didn’t budge.  No man who really knows the trail would have dared, under the circumstances, to remind his pardner that it was now his business to get up and fry the bacon.  But presently, without looking up, the hungry Colonel ventured: 

“Get your dry things!”

“Feet aren’t wet.”

“Don’t talk foolishness; here are your things.”  The Colonel flung in the Boy’s direction the usual change, two pairs of heavy socks, the “German knitted” and “the felt.”

“Not wet,” repeated the Boy.

“You know you are.”

“Could go through water in these mucklucks.”

“I’m not saying the wet has come in from outside; but you know as well as I do a man sweats like a horse on the trail.”

Still the Boy sat there, with his head sunk between his shoulders.

“First rule o’ this country is to keep your feet dry, or else pneumonia, rheumatism—­God knows what!”

“First rule o’ this country is mind your own business, or else—­God knows what!”

The Colonel looked at the Boy a moment, and then turned his back.  The Boy glanced up conscience-stricken, but still only half alive, dulled by the weight of a crushing weariness.  The Colonel presently bent over the fire and was about to lift off the turbulently boiling pot.  The Boy sprang to his feet, ready to shout, “You do your work, and keep your hands off mine,” but the Colonel turned just in time to say with unusual gentleness: 

“If you like, I’ll make supper to-night;” and the Boy, catching his breath, ran forward, swaying a little, half blind, but with a different look in his tired eyes.

“No, no, old man.  It isn’t as bad as that.”

And again it was two friends who slept side by side in the snow.