The two mail-carriers managed to get into their sleeping-bags, but the gale, instead of drifting them over with a protective mantle of snow, scoured the mountain-side bare to the brittle reindeer moss, and they began to freeze where they lay.  Some twenty hours they stood it, then they rose and plunged ahead of the hurricane like bewildered cattle.  The strongest man gave up first and lay down, babbling of things to eat.  His companion buried him, still alive, and broke down the surrounding willow-tops for a landmark, then he staggered on.  By some miracle of good luck, or as a result of some unsuspected power of resistance, he finally came raving into the Crooked River Road-house.  When the wind subsided they hurried him to Nome, but he was frightfully maimed and as a result of his amputations he lay gabbling until long after the spring break-up.

Folsom did not write again.  In fact, when no word came from Lois, he bitterly regretted the letters he had written.  He heard indirectly from her; new-comers from Nome told him that she was well, but that was all.  It was enough.  He did not wish to learn more.

Spring found him with barely enough money to pay his way back.  He was blue, bitter, disheartened, but despite the certainty that his wife had forsaken him he still cherished a flickering hope of a reconciliation.  Strangely enough he considered no scheme of vengeance upon the other man, for he was sane and healthy, and he loved Lois too well to spoil her attempt at happiness.

It so happened that the Arctic ice opened up later this spring than for many seasons; therefore the short summer was well under way before the first steam-schooner anchored off the Kobuk.  Folsom turned his back upon the wreck of his high hopes, his mind solely engaged with the problem of how to meet Lois and ascertain the truth without undue embarrassment to her and humiliation to himself.  The prospect of seeing her, of touching her, of hearing her voice, affected him painfully.  He could neither eat nor sleep on the way to Nome, but paced the deck in restless indecision.  He had come to consider himself wholly to blame for their misunderstanding, and he wished only for a chance to win back her love, with no questions asked and no favors granted.

When there were less than fifty miles to go the steamer broke her shaft.  There was no particular reason why that shaft should break, but break it did, and for eighteen hours—­eighteen eternities to Folsom—­the ship lay crippled while its engine-room crew labored manfully.

Folsom had been so long in the solitudes that Nome looked like a big city when he finally saw it.  There were several ships in the roadstead, and one of them was just leaving as the Kobuk boat came to anchor.  She made a splendid sight as she gathered way.

The returning miner went ashore in the first dory and as he stepped out upon the sand a friend greeted him: 

“Hello there, old settler!  Where you been all winter?”