“We ought to git along just as well as they kin!”

“You fergit.”

“What?”

“They have snowshoes.”

“Wall, git snowshoes, then, for us. I say, Scraggs, have ye such a thing?”

“No!” replied the asylum keeper. “What do you take me for? I’m no keeper of a logging camp.”

“No, nor anything else!” snapped Burke, viciously. “But if we can’t do any better we must wade.”

“That would be a fool’s game,” said the asylum keeper. “They can go four steps to your one on snowshoes.”

“Curse the luck! They can’t go far on such a night.”

“Ten miles would put ’em beyond your reach.”