Nicholas nodded, laid the logs side by side, and on them built a fire of the seasoned wood the Boy had gathered.  They boiled the kettle, made tea, and cooked some fish.

Ol’ Chief waked up just in time to get his share.  The Boy, who had kept hanging about the dogs with unabated interest, had got up from the fire to carry them the scraps, when Nicholas called out quite angrily, “No! no feed dogs,” and waved the Boy off.

“What!  It’s only some of my fish.  Fish is what they eat, ain’t it?”

“No feed now; wait till night.”

“What for?  They’re hungry.”

“You give fish—­dogs no go any more.”

Peremptorily he waved the Boy off, and fell to work at packing up.  Not understanding Nicholas’s wisdom, the Boy was feeling a little sulky and didn’t help.  He finished up the fish himself, then sat on his heels by the fire, scorching his face while his back froze, or wheeling round and singeing his new parki while his hands grew stiff in spite of seal-skin mittens.

No, it was no fun camping with the temperature at thirty degrees below zero—­better to be trotting after those expensive and dinnerless dogs; and he was glad when they started again.

But once beyond the scant shelter of the cottonwood, it was evident the wind had risen.  It was blowing straight out of the north and into their faces.  There were times when you could lean your whole weight against the blast.

After sunset the air began to fill with particles of frozen snow.  They did not seem to fall, but continually to whirl about, and present stinging points to the travellers’ faces.  Talking wasn’t possible even if you were in the humour, and the dead, blank silence of all nature, unbroken hour after hour, became as nerve-wearing as the cold and stinging wind.  The Boy fell behind a little.  Those places on his heels that had been so badly galled had begun to be troublesome again.  Well, it wouldn’t do any good to holla about it—­the only thing to do was to harden one’s foolish feet.  But in his heart he felt that all the time-honoured conditions of a penitential journey were being complied with, except on the part of the arch sinner.  Ol’ Chief seemed to be getting on first-rate.

The dogs, hardly yet broken in to the winter’s work, were growing discouraged, travelling so long in the eye of the wind.  And Nicholas, in the kind of stolid depression that had taken possession of him, seemed to have forgotten even to shout “Mush!” for a very long time.

By-and-by Ol’ Chief called out sharply, and Nicholas seemed to wake up.  He stopped, looked back, and beckoned to his companion.

The Boy came slowly on.

“Why you no push?”

“Push what?”

“Handle-bar.”

He went to the sled and illustrated, laying his hands on the arrangement at the back that stood out like the handle behind a baby’s perambulator.  The Boy remembered.  Of course, there were usually two men with each sled.  One ran ahead and broke trail with snow-shoes, but that wasn’t necessary today, for the crust bore.  But the other man’s business was to guide the sled from behind and keep it on the trail.