and chilled their bodies. They held but little conversation. The
wind interfered with speech. Beyond wondering at what could have
been Dennin's motive, they remained silent, oppressed by the horror
of the tragedy. At one o'clock, looking toward the cabin, Hans
announced that he was hungry.

"No, not now, Hans," Edith answered. "I couldn't go back alone
into that cabin the way it is, and cook a meal."

At two o'clock Hans volunteered to go with her; but she held him to
his work, and four o'clock found the two graves completed. They
were shallow, not more than two feet deep, but they would serve the
purpose. Night had fallen. Hans got the sled, and the two dead
men were dragged through the darkness and storm to their frozen
sepulchre. The funeral procession was anything but a pageant. The
sled sank deep into the drifted snow and pulled hard. The man and
the woman had eaten nothing since the previous day, and were weak
from hunger and exhaustion. They had not the strength to resist
the wind, and at times its buffets hurled them off their feet. On
several occasions the sled was overturned, and they were compelled
to reload it with its sombre freight. The last hundred feet to the
graves was up a steep slope, and this they took on all fours, like
sled-dogs, making legs of their arms and thrusting their hands into
the snow. Even so, they were twice dragged backward by the weight
of the sled, and slid and fell down the hill, the living and the
dead, the haul-ropes and the sled, in ghastly entanglement.

"To-morrow I will put up head-boards with their names," Hans said,
when the graves were filled in.