Roscoe picked it up and the pack which lay beside it.  He did not catch the ugly leer which the bearded man turned upon Thompson.  But Henry did, and his little eyes grew smaller and blacker.  On snowshoes the two men went out into the storm, Croker carrying an axe.  He led the way through the bit of thin timber, and across a wide open over which the storm swept so fiercely that their trail was covered behind them as they travelled.  Roscoe figured that they had gone a quarter of a mile when they came to another clump of trees, and Croker gave him the axe.

“You can cut down some of this,” he said.  “It’s better burning than that back there.  I’m going on for a dry log that I know of.  You wait until I come back.”

Roscoe set to work upon a spruce, but he could scarcely strike out a chip.  After a little he was compelled to drop his axe, and lean against the tree, exhausted.  At intervals he resumed his cutting.  It was half an hour before the small tree fell.  Then he waited for Croker.  Behind him his trail was already obliterated.  After a little he raised his voice and called for Croker.  There was no reply.  The wind moaned above him in the spruce tops.  It made a noise like the wash of the sea out on the open Barren.  He shouted again.  And again.  The truth dawned upon him slowly—­but it came.  Croker had brought him out purposely—­to lose him.  He was saving the bacon and the cold biscuits back in the cabin.  Roscoe’s hands clenched tightly, and then they relaxed.  At last he had found what he was after—­his book!  It would be a terrible book, if he carried out the idea that flashed upon him now in the wailing and twisting of the storm.  And then he laughed, for it occurred to him quickly that the idea would die—­with himself.  He might find the cabin, but he would not make the effort.  Once more he would fight alone and for himself.  The Spark returned to him, loyally.  He buttoned himself up closely, saw that his snowshoes were securely fastened, and struck out once more with his back to the storm.  He was at least a trifle better off for meeting with the flesh and blood of his kind.

The clump of timber thinned out, and Roscoe struck out boldly into the low bush.  As he went, he wondered what would happen in the cabin.  He believed that Henry, of the four, would not pull through alive, and that Croker would come out best.  It was not until the following summer that he learned the facts of Henry’s madness, and of the terrible manner in which he avenged himself on Croker by sticking a knife under the latter’s ribs.

For the first time in his life Roscoe found himself in a position to measure accurately the amount of energy contained in a slice of bacon and a cold biscuit.  It was not much.  Long before noon his old weakness was upon him again.  He found even greater difficulty in dragging his feet over the snow, and it seemed now as though all ambition had left him, and that even the fighting spark was becoming disheartened.  He made up his mind to go on until the arctic gloom of night began mingling with the storm; then he would stop, build a fire, and go to sleep in its warmth.  He would never wake up, and there would be no sensation of discomfort in his dying.