the table. "It was there I blundered. There was a plain traveled trail
from that mine down through the lowlands to Susitna, and I failed to see
that his tracks left it: they were partly blotted out in a fresh fall of
snow. I lost six hours there, and when I picked up his trail again, I saw
he was avoiding the few way houses; he passed the settlement by; then I
missed his camp-fire. It was plain he was afraid to sleep any more. But he
knew the Susitna country; he kept a true course, and sometimes, in swampy
places, turned back to the main thoroughfare. At last, near the crossing
of the Matanuska, I was caught in the first spring thaw. It was heavy
going. All the streams were out of banks; the valley became a network of
small sloughs undermining the snowfields, creating innumerable ponds and
lakes. The earth, bared in patches, gave and oozed like a sponge. It was
impossible to follow Weatherbee's trail, but I picked it up once more,
where it came into the other, along the Chugach foot-hills. Slides began
to block the way; ice glazed the overflows at night; and at last a cold
wave struck down from the summits; the track stiffened in an hour and it
was hard as steel underfoot. The wind cut like swords. Then came snow."

Tisdale looked off with his far-sighted gaze through the open door. Every
face was turned to him, but no one hurried him. It was a time when silence
spoke.

"I came on Weatherbee's dogs in a small ravine," he said. "They had
broken through thin ice in an overflow, and the sled had mired in muck.
The cold wave set them tight; their legs were planted like posts, and I
had to cut them out. Two were done for."

"You mean," exclaimed Banks, "Dave hadn't cut the traces to give his
huskies a chance."