"Go them, then."
The other moved forward.
"Can you go five more; answer, speak up, can you?"
Adler nodded his head.
"Go them—and another five—and another—there—that's something like a man, and let's have no more woman's drivel about dying."
"But—"
Bennett came close to him, shaking a forefinger in his face, thrusting forward his chin wickedly.
"My friend, I'll drive you like a dog, but," his fist clenched in the man's face, "I'll make you pull through."
Two hours later Adler finished the day's march at the head of the line.
The expedition began to eat its dogs. Every evening Bennett sent Muck Tu and Adler down to the shore to gather shrimps, though fifteen hundred of these shrimps hardly filled a gill measure. The party chewed reindeer-moss growing in scant patches in the snow-buried rocks, and at times made a thin, sickly infusion from the arctic willow. Again and again Bennett despatched the Esquimau and Clarke, the best shots in the party, on hunting expeditions to the southward. Invariably they returned empty-handed. Occasionally they reported old tracks of reindeer and foxes, but the winter colds had driven everything far inland. Once only Clarke shot a snow-bunting, a little bird hardly bigger than a sparrow. Still Bennett pushed forward.