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But they had lost in the race with winter, and one day they tied their rafts to the thick eddy-ice and hurried their goods ashore. That night the river jammed and broke several times; the following morning it had fallen asleep for good.’We can’t be more’n four hundred miles from the Yukon,’ concluded Sloper, multiplying his thumb nails by the scale of the map. The council, in which the two Incapables had whined to excellent disadvantage, was drawing to a close.

‘Hudson Bay Post, long time ago. No use um now.’ Jacques Baptiste’s father had made the trip for the Fur Company in the old days, incidentally marking the trail with
a couple of frozen toes.

Sufferin’ cracky!’ cried another of the party.’No whites?’ ‘Nary white,’ Sloper sententiously affirmed; ‘but it’s only five hundred more up the Yukon to Dawson. Call it a rough thousand from here.’ Weatherbee and Cuthfert groaned in chorus.

‘How long’ll that take, Baptiste?’ The half-breed figured for a moment.’Workum like hell, no man play out, tentwenty–forty–fifty days. Um babies come’ (designating the Incapables), ‘no can tell. Mebbe when hell freeze over; mebbe not then.’ The manufacture of snowshoes and moccasins ceased. Somebody called the name of an absent member, who came out of an ancient cabin at the edge of the campfire and joined them. The cabin was one of the many mysteries which lurk in the vast recesses of the North. Built when and by whom, no man could tell.

Two graves in the open, piled high with stones, perhaps contained the secret of those early wanderers. But whose hand had piled the stones? The moment had come. Jacques Baptiste paused in the fitting of a harness and pinned the struggling dog in the snow. The cook made mute protest for delay, threw a handful of bacon into a noisy pot of beans, then came to attention. Sloper rose to his feet. His body was a ludicrous contrast to the healthy physiques of the Incapables. Yellow and weak, fleeing from a South American fever-hole, he had not broken his flight across the zones, and was still able to toil with men. His weight was probably ninety pounds, with the heavy hunting knife thrown in, and his grizzled hair told of a prime which had ceased to be. The fresh young muscles of either Weatherbee or Cuthfert were equal to ten times the endeavor of his; yet he could walk them into the earth in a day’s journey. And all this day he had whipped his stronger comrades into venturing a thousand miles of the stiffest hardship man can conceive. He was the incarnation of the unrest of his race, and the old Teutonic stubbornness, dashed with the quick grasp and action of the Yankee, held the flesh in the bondage of the spirit.

‘All those in favor of going on with the dogs as soon as the ice sets, say ay.’ ‘Ay!’ rang out eight voices–voices destined to string a trail of oaths along many a hundred miles of pain.

‘Contrary minded?’ ‘No!’ For the first time the Incapables were united without some compromise of personal interests.

‘And what are you going to do about it?’ Weatherbee added belligerently.

‘Majority rule! Majority rule!’ clamored the rest of the party.

‘I know the expedition is liable to fall through if you don’t come,’ Sloper replied sweetly; ‘but I guess, if we try real hard, we can manage to do without you.

What do you say, boys?’ The sentiment was cheered to the echo.

‘But I say, you know,’ Cuthfert ventured apprehensively; ‘what’s a chap like me to do?’

‘Ain’t you coming with us.’ ‘No–o.’ ‘Then do as you damn well please. We won’t have nothing to say.’ ‘Kind o’ calkilate yuh might settle it with that canoodlin’ pardner of yourn,’ suggested a heavy-going Westerner from the Dakotas, at the same time pointing out Weatherbee.’He’ll be shore to ask yuh what yur a-goin’ to do when it comes to cookin’ an’ gatherin’ the wood.’ ‘Then we’ll consider it all arranged,’ concluded Sloper.