with great labour. For the earth rang like iron, denying entrance to the earth that lay placid above it. Then Dick straightened, wiping the sweat from his face.
"Time we pulled out," he said. They've got one man, and he's a hunter. They'll do till we can get 'em out in spring."
But Kennedy halted shamefaced by the grave.
"Perhaps you wouldn't want ter say something" he mumbled.
"What?" Dick stared. Then humorous contempt twitched his lips.
"Say anything you feel like, son," he said. "And take your time. I imagine it would come better from you than me."
He went back to the shack where the big hound watched Abraham and the remainder of the lost tribe of Israel watched the hound and listened to the whirling words of the pinioned man. And an hour later began that long nightmare that walked with them through the eight days into Grey Wolf; days that two men remembered long after the third had gone to find his senses again in another world.
There were hours when the man on the sled turned livid from cold, and Dick had to let him up to keep life in him, locking the handcuffs to his own belt for safety. There were hours when Abraham lay rigid, with clenched teeth through which they struggled to force food in vain. There were hours too when the blizzard caught them; so that men and dogs bowed to its might, and crouched under the half-pitched tent with the raving man at their ears until the storm was spent and they rose again, recounting their lessening food-kit.
But to Kennedy the edge of all horror was reached in the times when Dick set the maniac on his feet, and ran beside him, or struggled against him, or whirled with him in a drunken, hideous dance, according to Abraham's whim, in order that life might be kept in this huge creature whom earth did not want and dared not lose. Dick's own life was often in danger from the sheer brute strength of the man. He was worn from sleeplessness and exhaustion and cold, and, in later days, from hunger. A spot on his chin
