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He went on for hours, halting the team now and then for a few minutes' rest. He struck a match each time and looked at Pelliter. His comrade breathed heavily, with his eyes closed. Once, long after midnight, he opened them and stared at the flare of the match and into MacVeigh's white face. "I'm all right, Billy," he said. "Let me walk " MacVeigh forced him back gently, and went on.
Then ten days back, mebbe two weeks, and you'll have the medicines and the letters. Hurrah!" "Hurrah!" cried Pelliter. He turned his face a little to the wall. Something rose up in MacVeigh's throat and choked him as he gripped Pelliter's hand. "My God, Bill, is that the sun ?" suddenly cried Pelliter. MacVeigh wheeled toward the one window of the cabin. The sick man tumbled from his bunk.
As Pelliter ran out he gripped him by the shoulders. "Listen!" he commanded. "Listen to that!" "Wolves!" said Pelliter. The wind was rising, and sent a whistling blast through the open door of the cabin. It awakened Little Mystery, who sat up with frightened cries. "No, it's not wolves," cried MacVeigh, and it did not sound like MacVeigh's voice that spoke. "I never heard wolves like that.
I'll go Billy MacVeigh's bond to get the Service to pay her five dollars a day from the hour she starts!" He turned to Billy. "How's your head?" he asked. "Better. It was the run that fixed me, I guess." "Then we'll go over to Couchée's cabin and I'll bring back the kid."
"She's the bravest little kid in the world," he finished; and Pelliter wondered at the strangeness of his voice. He tucked her into a nest made of blankets and then tied her in securely with babiche rope. Pelliter stood up first and saw the hungry, staring look in MacVeigh's face as he kept his eyes steadily upon Little Mystery. "What's the matter, Mac?" he asked.
One of the running Eskimos pitched forward with a cry that rose shrill and scarcely human above the moaning and roar of the ice-fields, and the other four fell flat upon the snow to escape the hail of lead that sang close over their heads. From the snow-ridge there came a fusillade of shots, and a single figure darted like a streak in MacVeigh's direction.
But she is young in contrast to a Methuselah like myself." Kemp had to look after Miss MacVeigh's trunks, so Randy's little car went on ahead. Thus again Fate pulled wires, or Providence. If the big car had had the lead Madge would have gone straight as an arrow to Hamilton Hill. But as it happened, Little Sister barred the way to the open road. The two cars had to pass the Flippins. Mrs.
She tells me to hurry hurry down there to her. She says that if I don't come soon she'll come up to me! Read 'em, Billy!" He looked in astonishment at the change which he saw in MacVeigh's face. Billy accepted the letters mechanically and placed them on the edge of the bunk near which he was sitting. "I'll read them after a while," he said, slowly.
When Pelliter awoke two hours later MacVeigh's pack and sledge were ready for the trip south. While they ate their breakfast the two men finished their plans. When the hour of parting came Billy left his comrade alone with little Isobel and went out to hitch up the dogs.
He had listened to those sounds for five months, and in those five months he had heard no other voice but his own and MacVeigh's and the babble of an Eskimo. Only once in four months had he seen the sun, and that was on the morning that MacVeigh went south. So he had gone half mad. Others had gone completely mad before him.
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