Yet his first feeling was of immediate relief.  The horrible duty that had seemed to be laid upon him was not a duty at all.  He saw his course quite simply.  All he had to do was to achieve the impossible.  If he failed in it, he would go down like a soldier in the day’s work.  He would have, anyhow, no torturings of conscience, no blight resting upon him till the day of his death.

“You’re reprieved, West,” he announced simply.

The desperado staggered to the sled and leaned against it faintly.  His huge body swayed.  The revulsion was almost too much for him.

“I—­I—­knowed you couldn’t treat an old pardner thataway, Tom,” he murmured.

Morse took the man out to a fir tree.  He carried with him a blanket, a buffalo robe, and a part of the dog harness.

“Whad you aimin’ to do?” asked West uneasily.  He was not sure yet that he was out of the woods.

“Roll up in the blankets,” ordered Morse.

The fellow looked at his grim face and did as he was told.  Tom tied him to the tree, after making sure that his hands were fast behind him.

“I’ll freeze here,” the convict complained.

The two officers were lean and gaunt from hard work and insufficient nourishment, but West was still sleek and well padded with flesh.  He had not missed a meal, and during the past weeks he had been a passenger.  All the hard work, the packing at portages, the making of camp, the long, wearing days of hunting, had fallen upon the two whose prisoner he was.  He could stand a bit of hardship, Tom decided.

“No such luck,” he said brusquely.  “And I wouldn’t try to break away if I were you.  I can’t kill you, but I’ll thrash you with the dog-whip if you make me any trouble.”

Morse called Cuffy and set the dog to watch the bound man.  He did not know whether the St. Bernard would do this, but he was glad to see that the leader of the train understood at once and settled down in the snow to sleep with one eye watchful of West.

Tom returned to his friend.  He knew he must concentrate his efforts to keep life in the battered body of the soldier.  He must nurse and feed him judiciously until the fever wore itself out.

While he was feeding Win broth, he fell asleep with the spoon in his hand.  He jerkily flung back his head and opened his eyes.  Cuffy still lay close to the prisoner, evidently prepared for an all-night vigil with short light naps from which the least movement would instantly arouse him.

“I’m all in.  Got to get some sleep,” Morse said to himself, half aloud.

He wrapped in his blankets.  When his eyes opened, the sun was beating down from high in the heavens.  He had slept from one day into the next.  Even in his sleep he had been conscious of some sound drumming at his ears.  It was the voice of West.

“You gonna sleep all day?  Don’t we get any grub?  Have I gotta starve while you pound yore ear?”