Captain laid a heavy hand on his shoulder.

“That’ll do.  What are you talking about?  George wouldn’t last two days, and you know it.  Now listen.  You don’t have to go, you infernal greasy dog, there are others in camp, and one of them will go if I walk him at the muzzle of a gun.  I gave you first chance, because we’ve been good to you.  Now get out.”

He snatched him from his seat and hurled him at the door, where he fell in a heap.

Klusky arose, and, although his eyes snapped wildly and he trembled, he spoke insidiously, with oily modulation.

“Vait a meenute, Meestaire Captain, vait a meenute.  I didn’t say I vouldn’t go.  Oi!  Oi!  Vat a man!  Shoor I’ll go.  Coitenly!  You have been good to me and they have been devils.  I hope they die.”  He shook a bony fist in the direction of the camp, while his voice took on its fanatical shrillness.  “They shall be in h——­ before I help them, the pigs, but you—­ah, you have been my friends, yes ?”

“All right; be here at daylight,” said Captain gruffly.  Anger came slowly to him, and its trace was even slower in its leaving.

“I don’t like him,” said George, when he had slunk out.  “He ain’t on the level.  Watch him close, boy, he’s up to some devilment.”

“Keep up your courage, old man.  I’ll be back in twelve days.”  Captain said it with decision, though his heart sank as he felt the uncertainties before him.

George looked squarely into his eyes.

“God bless ye, boy,” he said.  “I’ve cabined with many a man, but never one like you.  I’m a hard old nut, an’ I ain’t worth what you’re goin’ to suffer, but mebbe you can save these other idiots.  That’s what we’re put here for, to help them as is too ornery to help theirselves.”  He smiled at Captain, and the young man left him blindly.  He seldom smiled, and to see it now made his partner’s breast heave achingly.

“Good old George!” he murmured as they pulled out upon the river.  “Good old George!” As they passed from the settlement an Indian came to the door of the last hovel.

“Hello.  There’s a Siwash in your cabin,” said Captain.  “What is he doing there ?”

“That’s all right,” rejoined Klusky.  “I told him to stay and vatch t’ings.”

“Rather strange,” thought the other.  “I wonder what there is to watch.  There’s never been any stealing around here.”

To the unversed, a march by sled would seem simplicity.  In reality there is no more discouraging test than to hit the trail, dogless and by strength of back.  The human biped cannot drag across the snow for any distance more than its own weight; hence equipment is of the simplest.  At that, the sledge rope galls one’s neck with a continual, endless, yielding drag, resulting in back pains peculiar to itself.  It is this eternal maddening pull, with the pitiful crawling gait that tells; horse’s labour and a snail’s pace.  The toil begets