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Now, under their stiff mackinaws they perspired freely as the sun mounted, until their heavy garments chafed them beneath arms and legs. Moreover, mosquitoes, which in this latitude breed within arm’s-length of snow-drifts, continually whined in a vicious cloud before their features.

Human nerves will weather great strains, but wearing, maddening, unending trivialities will break them down, and so, although their journey in miles had been inconsiderable, the dragging packs, the driving panic, the lack of food and firm footing, had trebled it.

Scaling the moss-capped saddle, they labored painfully, a hundred yards at a time. Back of them the valley unrolled, its stream winding away like a gleaming ribbon, stretching, through dark banks of fir, down to the Yukon. After incredible effort they reached the crest and gazed dully out to the southward over a limitless jangle of peaks, on, on, to a blue-veiled valley leagues and leagues across. Many square miles lay under them in the black of unbroken forests. It was their first glimpse of the Tanana. Far beyond, from a groveling group of foot-hills, a solitary, giant peak soared grandly, standing aloof, serene, terrible in its proportions. Even in their fatigue they exclaimed aloud:

“It’s Mount McKinley!”

“Yep! Tallest wart on the face of the continent. There’s the creek we go down–see!” Crowley indicated a watercourse which meandered away through canons and broad reaches. “We foller it to yonder cross valley; then east to there.”

To Buck’s mind, his gesture included a tinted realm as far-reaching as a state.

Stretched upon the bare schist, commanding the back stretch, they munched slices of raw bacon.

Directly, out toward the mountain’s foot two figures crawled.

“There they come!” and Crowley led, stumbling, sliding, into the strange valley.

As this was the south and early side of the range, they found the hills more barren of snow. Water seeped into the gulches till the creek ice was worn and rotted.

“This ‘ll be fierce,” the Irishman remarked. “If she breaks on us we’ll be hung up in the hills and starve before the creeks lower enough to get home.”

Small streams freeze solidly to the bottom and the spring waters wear downward from the surface. Thus they found the creek awash, and, following farther, it became necessary to wade in many places. They came to a box canon where the winter snow had packed, forming a dam, and, as there was no way of avoiding it without retreating a mile and climbing the ragged bluff, they floundered through, their packs aloft, the slushy water armpit-deep.

“We’d ought ‘a’ took the ridges,” Buck chattered. Language slips forth phonetically with fatigue.

“No! Feller’s apt to get lost. Drop into the wrong creek–come out fifty mile away.”

“I bet the others do, anyhow,” Buck held, stubbornly. “It’s lots easier going.”

“Wish Sully would, but he’s too wise. No such luck for me.” A long pause. “I reckon I’ll have to kill him before he gets back!” Again they relapsed into miles of silence.

Crowley’s fancy fed on vengeance, hatred livening his work-worn faculties. He nursed carefully the memory of their quarrel, for it helped him travel and took his mind from the agony of movement and this aching sleep-hunger.

The feet of both men felt like fearful, shapeless masses; their packs leaned backward sullenly, chafing raw shoulder sores; and always the ravenous mosquitoes stung and stung, and whined and whined.

At an exclamation the leader turned. Miles back, silhouetted far above on the comb of the ridge, they descried two tiny figures.

“That’s what we’d ought ‘a’ done. They’ll beat us in.”

“No, they won’t. They’ll have to camp to-night or get lost, while we can keep goin’. We can’t go wrong down here; can’t do no more than drownd.”

Buck groaned at the thought of the night hours. He couldn’t stand it, that was all! Enough is enough of anything and he had gone the limit. Just one more mile and he would quit; yet he did not.

All through that endless phantom night they floundered, incased in freezing garments, numb and heavy with sleep, but morning found them at the banks of the main stream.