Bennett came close to him, shaking a forefinger in his face, thrusting
forward his chin wickedly.

"My friend, I'll drive you like a dog, but," his fist clenched in the
man's face, "I'll _make_ you pull through."

Two hours later Adler finished the day's march at the head of the line.

The expedition began to eat its dogs. Every evening Bennett sent Muck Tu
and Adler down to the shore to gather shrimps, though fifteen hundred of
these shrimps hardly filled a gill measure. The party chewed
reindeer-moss growing in scant patches in the snow-buried rocks, and at
times made a thin, sickly infusion from the arctic willow. Again and
again Bennett despatched the Esquimau and Clarke, the best shots in the
party, on hunting expeditions to the southward. Invariably they returned
empty-handed. Occasionally they reported old tracks of reindeer and
foxes, but the winter colds had driven everything far inland. Once only
Clarke shot a snow-bunting, a little bird hardly bigger than a sparrow.
Still Bennett pushed forward.

One morning in the beginning of the third week, after a breakfast of two
ounces of dog meat and a half cup of willow tea, Ferriss and Bennett
found themselves a little apart from the others. The men were engaged in
lowering the tent. Ferriss glanced behind to be assured he was out of
hearing, then:

"How about McPherson?" he said in a low voice.

McPherson's foot was all but eaten to the bone by now. It was a miracle
how the man had kept up thus far. But at length he had begun to fall