swerved aside in pursuit. Daylight, yelling "Whoa!" struggled
with the gee-pole and managed to overturn the sled into the soft
snow. The dogs gave up, the sled was righted, and five minutes
later they were flying along the hard-packed trail again. The
lynx was the only sign of life they had seen in two days, and it,
leaping velvet-footed and vanishing, had been more like an
apparition.

At twelve o'clock, when the sun peeped over the earth-bulge,
they stopped and built a small fire on the ice. Daylight, with
the ax, chopped chunks off the frozen sausage of beans. These,
thawed and warmed in the frying-pan, constituted their meal.
They had no coffee. He did not believe in the burning of
daylight for such a luxury. The dogs stopped wrangling with one
another, and looked on wistfully. Only at night did they get
their pound of fish. In the meantime they worked.

The cold snap continued. Only men of iron kept the trail at such
low temperatures, and Kama and Daylight were picked men of their
races. But Kama knew the other was the better man, and thus, at
the start, he was himself foredoomed to defeat. Not that he
slackened his effort or willingness by the slightest conscious
degree, but that he was beaten by the burden he carried in his
mind. His attitude toward Daylight was worshipful. Stoical,
taciturn, proud of his physical prowess, he found all these
qualities incarnated in his white companion. Here was one that
excelled in the things worth excelling in, a man-god ready to
hand, and Kama could not but worship--withal he gave no signs of
it. No wonder the race of white men conquered, was his thought,
when it bred men like this man. What chance had the Indian