Daylight found them far below Tagish Post.  At nine o’clock Sunday morning they could hear the Flora whistling her departure.  And when, at ten o’clock, they dragged themselves in to the Post, they could barely see the Flora’s smoke far to the southward.  It was a pair of worn-out tatterdemalions that Captain Jones of the Mounted Police welcomed and fed, and he afterward averred that they possessed two of the most tremendous appetites he had ever observed.  They lay down and slept in their wet rags by the stove.  At the end of two hours Churchill got up, carried Bondell’s grip, which he had used for a pillow, down to the canoe, kicked Antonsen awake, and started in pursuit of the Flora.

“There’s no telling what might happen—­machinery break down, or something,” was his reply to Captain Jones’s expostulations.  “I’m going to catch that steamer and send her back for the boys.”

Tagish Lake was white with a fall gale that blew in their teeth.  Big, swinging seas rushed upon the canoe, compelling one man to bale and leaving one man to paddle.  Headway could not be made.  They ran along the shallow shore and went overboard, one man ahead on the tow-line, the other shoving on the canoe.  They fought the gale up to their waists in the icy water, often up to their necks, often over their heads and buried by the big, crested waves.  There was no rest, never a moment’s pause from the cheerless, heart-breaking battle.  That night, at the head of Tagish Lake, in the thick of a driving snow-squall, they overhauled the Flora.  Antonsen fell on board, lay where he had fallen, and snored.  Churchill looked like a wild man.  His clothes barely clung to him.  His face was iced up and swollen from the protracted effort of twenty-four hours, while his hands were so swollen that he could not close the fingers.  As for his feet, it was an agony to stand upon them.

The captain of the Flora was loth to go back to White Horse.  Churchill was persistent and imperative; the captain was stubborn.  He pointed out finally that nothing was to be gained by going back, because the only ocean steamer at Dyea, the Athenian, was to sail on Tuesday morning, and that he could not make the back trip to White Horse and bring up the stranded pilgrims in time to make the connection.

“What time does the Athenian sail?” Churchill demanded.

“Seven o’clock, Tuesday morning.”

“All right,” Churchill said, at the same time kicking a tattoo on the ribs of the snoring Antonsen.  “You go back to White Home.  We’ll go ahead and hold the Athenian.”

Antonsen, stupid with sleep, not yet clothed in his waking mind, was bundled into the canoe, and did not realize what had happened till he was drenched with the icy spray of a big sea, and heard Churchill snarling at him through the darkness:—­

“Paddle, can’t you!  Do you want to be swamped?”