“Who, me?  There she is.”  Harkness flung out a directing hand once more.

Folsom hesitated, battling with his leaping desires, and upon that momentary hesitation hinged results out of all proportions to the gravity of the situation—­issues destined to change the deepest channels of his life.  Folsom hesitated, then he yielded to his impulse, and the luxury of yielding made him drunk.  He walked around the sled, removing his mittens with his teeth as he went.  Without a word he seized his companion by the throat and throttled him until his eyes protruded and his face grew black and bloated.  He relaxed his stiff fingers finally, then he shook the fellow back to consciousness.

“Just as I thought,” he cried, harshly.  “That’s not the gulch you pointed out before.  You’re lost and you won’t admit it.”

Harkness pawed the air and fought for his breath.  There was abject terror in his eyes.  He reeled away, but saw there was no safety in flight.

“Own up!” Folsom commanded.

“You—­said this was the way,” the pathfinder whimpered.  “You made me—­turn off—­” Folsom uttered a growl and advanced a step, whereupon his victim gurgled:  “D-don’t touch me!  That’s the Imnachuck, so help me God!  I’m—­I’m almost sure it is.”

“Almost!” The speaker stooped for his mittens and shook the snow out of them; he was still struggling to control himself.  “Look here, Mr. Know-It-All, I’ve never been here before, and you have; somewhere in your thick skull there must be some faint remembrance of the country.  You got us into this fix, and I’m going to give you one more chance to get us out of it.  Don’t try to think with your head, let your feet think for you, and maybe they’ll carry you to the right gulch.  If they don’t—­” Folsom scanned the brooding heavens and his lips compressed.  “We’re in for a storm and—­we’ll never weather it.  Take one look while there’s light to see by, then turn your feet loose and pray that they lead you right, for if they don’t, by God, I’ll cut you loose!”

It soon proved that memory lay neither in Harkness’s head nor in his feet; when he had veered aimlessly about for half an hour, evidently fearing to commit himself to a definite course, and when the wind came whooping down, rolling a twilight smother ahead of it, Folsom turned his dogs into the nearest depression and urged them to a run.  The grade increased, soon brittle willow-tops brushed against the speeding sled:  this brush grew higher as the two men, blinded now by the gale, stumbled onward behind the team.  They emerged from the gulch into a wider valley, after a while, and a mile further on the dogs burst through a grove of cottonwoods and fetched up before a lighted cabin window.

Harkness pulled back his parka hood and cried, boastfully:  “What did I tell you?  I knew where I was all the time.”  Then he went in, leaving his partner to unhitch the team and care for it.