at ten o'clock, they dragged themselves in to the Post, they could just
barely see the _Flora's_ smoke far to the southward. It was a pair of
worn-out tatterdemalions that Captain Jones of the Mounted Police
welcomed and fed, and he afterward averred that they possessed two of
the most tremendous appetites he had ever observed. They lay down and
slept in their wet rags by the stove. At the end of two hours Churchill
got up, carried Bondell's grip, which he had used for a pillow, down to
the canoe, kicked Antonsen awake, and started in pursuit of the _Flora_.

"There's no telling what might happen--machinery break down or
something," was his reply to Captain Jones's expostulations. "I'm going
to catch that steamer and send her back for the boys."

Tagish Lake was white with a fall gale that blew in their teeth. Big,
swinging seas rushed upon the canoe, compelling one man to bail and
leaving one man to paddle. Headway could not be made. They ran along the
shallow shore and went overboard, one man ahead on the tow-line, the
other shoving on the canoe. They fought the gale up to their waists in
the icy water, often up to their necks, often over their heads and
buried by the big, crested waves. There was no rest, never a moment's
pause from the cheerless, heart-breaking battle. That night, at the head
of Tagish Lake, in the thick of a driving snow-squall, they overhauled
the _Flora._ Antonsen. "You go back to White Horse, and snored.
[Transcriber's note: The above is evidently a printer's error.]
Churchill looked like a wild man. His clothes barely clung to him. His
face was iced up and swollen from the protracted effort of twenty-four
hours, while his hands were so swollen that he could not close the
fingers. As for his feet, it was an agony to stand upon them.

The captain of the _Flora_ was loath to go back to White Horse.