disappeared, and ridges became much less frequent. By the fifteenth day
I was leaving behind the ice-grave of David Wilson at the rate of ten to
thirteen miles a day.

Yet, as it were, his arm reached out and touched me, even there.

His disappearance had been explained by a hundred different guesses on
the ship--all plausible enough. I had no idea that anyone connected me
in any way with his death.

But on our twenty-second day of march, 140 miles from our goal, he
caused a conflagration of rage and hate to break out among us three.

It was at the end of a march, when our stomachs were hollow, our frames
ready to drop, and our mood ravenous and inflamed. One of Mew's dogs was
sick: it was necessary to kill it: he asked me to do it.

'Oh,' said I, 'you kill your own dog, of course.'

'Well, I don't know,' he replied, catching fire at once, 'you ought to
be used to killing, Jeffson.'

'How do you mean, Mew?' said I with a mad start, for madness and the
flames of Hell were instant and uppermost in us all: 'you mean because
my profession----'

'Profession! damn it, no,' he snarled like a dog: 'go and dig up David
Wilson--I dare say you know where to find him--and he will tell you my
meaning, right enough.'