“Jan!  Jan Larose!” called O’Grady, stopping to listen.

Jan held his breath.  Then the truth seemed to dawn upon O’Grady.  He laughed, differently than he had laughed before, and stretched out his arms.

“My God, Jan,” he cried, “you don’t think I’m clean beast, do you?  The fight’s over, man, an’ I guess God A’mighty brought this on us to show what fools we was.  Where are y’, Jan Larose?  I’m goin’ t’ carry you out!”

“I’m here!” called Jan.

He could see truth and fearlessness in O’Grady’s sightless face, and he guided him without fear.  Their hands met.  Then O’Grady lowered himself and hoisted Jan to his shoulders as easily as he would have lifted a boy.  He straightened himself and drew a deep breath, broken by a stabbing throb of pain.

“I’m blind an’ I won’t see any more,” he said, “an’ mebbe you won’t ever walk any more.  But if we ever git to that gold I kin do the work and you kin show me how.  Now—­p’int out the way, Jan Larose!”

With his arms clasped about O’Grady’s naked shoulders, Jan’s smarting eyes searched through the thickening smother of fire and smoke for a road that the other’s feet might tread.  He shouted “Left”—­“right”—­“right”—­“right”—­“left” into this blind companion’s ears until they touched the wall.  As the heat smote them more fiercely, O’Grady bowed his great head upon his chest and obeyed mutely the signals that rang in his ears.  The bottoms of his moccasins were burned from his feet, live embers ate at his flesh, his broad chest was a fiery blister, and yet he strode on straight into the face of still greater heat and greater torture, uttering no sound that could be heard above the steady roar of the flames.  And Jan, limp and helpless on his back, felt then the throb and pulse of a giant life under him, the straining of thick neck, of massive shoulders and the grip of powerful arms whose strength told him that at last he had found the comrade and the man in Clarry O’Grady.  “Right”—­“left”—­“left”—­“right” he shouted, and then he called for O’Grady to stop in a voice that was shrill with warning.

“There’s fire ahead,” he yelled.  “We can’t follow the wall any longer.  There’s an open space close to the chasm.  We can make that, but there’s only about a yard to spare.  Take short steps—­one step each time I tell you.  Now—­left—­left—­left—­left—­”

Like a soldier on drill, O’Grady kept time with his scorched feet until Jan turned him again to face the storm of fire, while one of his own broken legs dangled over the abyss into which Jackpine and the Chippewayan had plunged to their death.  Behind them, almost where they had fought, there crashed down a third avalanche from the edge of the mountain.  Not a shiver ran through O’Grady’s great body.  Steadily and unflinchingly—­step—­step—­step—­he went ahead, while the last threads of his moccasins smoked and burned.  Jan could no longer see half a dozen yards in advance.  A wall of black smoke rose in their faces, and he pulled O’Grady’s ear: