“To knock out my brains when I ain’t looking,” growled Brokaw.  “I guess—­before long—­you’ll be willing to tell where the Indian’s shack is.”  He kicked his way through a drift of snow to the smoother surface of the stream.  There was a breath of wind in their faces, and Billy bowed his head to it.  In the hours of his greatest loneliness and despair Billy had kept up his fighting spirit by thinking of pleasant things, and now, as he followed in Brokaw’s trail, he began to think of home.  It was not hard for him to bring up visions of the girl wife who would probably never know how he had died.  He forgot Brokaw.  He followed in the trail mechanically, failing to notice that his captor’s pace was growing steadily slower, and that his own feet were dragging more and more like leaden weights.  He was back among the old hills again, and the sun was shining, and he heard laughter and song.  He saw Jeanne standing at the gate in front of the little white cottage, smiling at him, and waving Baby Jeanne’s tiny hand at him as he looked back over his shoulder from down the dusty road.  His mind did not often travel as far as the mining camp, and he had completely forgotten it now.  He no longer felt the sting and pain of the intense cold.  It was Brokaw who brought him back into the reality of things.  The sergeant stumbled and fell in a drift, and Billy fell over him.  For a moment the two men sat half buried in the snow, looking at each other without speaking.  Brokaw moved first.  He rose to his feet with an effort.  Billy made an attempt to follow him.  After three efforts he gave it up, and blinked up into Brokaw’s face with a queer laugh.  The laugh was almost soundless.  There had come a change in Brokaw’s face.  Its determination and confidence were gone.  At last the iron mask of the Law was broken, and there shone through it something of the emotions and the brotherhood of man.  He was fumbling in one of his pockets, and drew out the key to the handcuffs.  It was a small key, and he held it between his stiffened fingers with diffic ulty.  He knelt down beside Billy.  The keyhole was filled with snow.  It took a long time—­ten minutes—­before the key was fitted in and the lock clicked.  He helped to tear off the cuffs.  Billy felt no sensation as bits of skin and flesh came “with them.  Brokaw gave him a hand, and assisted him to rise.  For the first time he spoke.

“Guess you’ve got me beat, Billy,” he said.

“Where’s the Indian’s?”

He drew his revolver from its holster and tossed it in the snowdrift.  The shadow of a smile passed grimly over his face.  Billy looked about him.  They had stopped where the frozen path of a smaller stream joined the creek.  He raised one of his stiffened arms and pointed to it.

“Follow that creek—­four miles—­and you’ll come to Indian Joe’s shack,” he said.

“And a mile is just about our limit”

“Just about—­your’s,” replied Billy.  “I can’t make another half.  If we had a fire—­”