years and snow, played its last part in the tragedy of life. He
heard the warning crash and attempted to spring up but, almost
erect, caught the blow squarely on the shoulder.

The sudden danger, the quick death--how often had Malemute Kid
faced it! The pine needles were still quivering as he gave his
commands and sprang into action. Nor did the Indian girl faint or
raise her voice in idle wailing, as might many of her white
sisters. At his order, she threw her weight on the end of a
quickly extemporized handspike, easing the pressure and listening
to her husband's groans, while Malemute Kid attacked the tree
with his ax. The steel rang merrily as it bit into the frozen
trunk, each stroke being accompanied by a forced, audible
respiration, the 'Huh!' 'Huh!' of the woodsman.

At last the Kid laid the pitiable thing that was once a man in
the snow. But worse than his comrade's pain was the dumb anguish
in the woman's face, the blended look of hopeful, hopeless query.
Little was said; those of the Northland are early taught the
futility of words and the inestimable value of deeds. With the
temperature at sixty-five below zero, a man cannot lie many
minutes in the snow and live. So the sled lashings were cut, and
the sufferer, rolled in furs, laid on a couch of boughs. Before
him roared a fire, built of the very wood which wrought the
mishap. Behind and partially over him was stretched the primitive
fly--a piece of canvas, which caught the radiating heat and threw
it back and down upon him--a trick which men may know who study
physics at the fount.

And men who have shared their bed with death know when the call