supporting his head against his own heaving shoulders.

"It's only a little farther, Rod," he urged. "We can make it, and take
to a tree. We ought to have taken to a tree back there, but I didn't
know that you were so far gone; and there was a good chance to make
camp, with three cartridges left for the open lake."

"Only three!"

"That's all, but I ought to make two of them count in this light. Here,
take hold of my shoulders! Quick!"

He doubled himself like a jack-knife in front of his half-prostrate
companion. From behind them there came a sudden chorus of the wolves,
louder and clearer than before.

"They've hit the open and we'll have them on the lake inside of two
minutes," he cried. "Give me your arms, Rod! There! Can you hold the
gun?"

He straightened himself, staggering under the other's weight, and set
off on a half-trot for the distant tamaracks. Every muscle in his
powerful young body was strained to its utmost tension. Even more fully
than his helpless burden did he realize the peril at their backs.

Three minutes, four minutes more, and then--

A terrible picture burned in Wabi's brain, a picture he had carried from
boyhood of another child, torn and mangled before his very eyes by these
outlaws of the North, and he shuddered. Unless he sped those three