Within three months we have made three patrols west of the Bay,
unraveling sixteen hundred miles without finding our man or word of
him. I respectfully advise a close watch of the patrols south of
the Barren Lands."

"There!" said MacVeigh aloud, straightening his rounded shoulders with
a groan of relief. "It's done."

From his bunk in a corner of the little wind and storm beaten cabin
which represented Law at the top end of the earth Private Pelliter
lifted a head wearily from his sick bed and said: "I'm bloomin' glad
of it, Mac. Now mebbe you'll give me a drink of water and shoot that
devilish huskie that keeps howling every now and then out there as
though death was after me."

"Nervous?" said MacVeigh, stretching his strong young frame with
another sigh of satisfaction. "What if you had to write this twice a
year?" And he pointed at the report.

"It isn't any longer than the letters you wrote to that girl of
yours--"

Pelliter stopped short. There was a moment of embarrassing silence.
Then he added, bluntly, and with a hand reaching out: "I beg your
pardon, Mac. It's this fever. I forgot for a moment that-- that you
two-- had broken."

"That's all right," said MacVeigh, with a quiver in his voice, as he
turned for the water.