“Two days late,” said Dallas, as he paused for a few moments to rest and gain his breath, before shooting into collar again, when the trace tightened, the sledge creaked and ground over the blocks of ice, and glided over the obstruction which had checked him for the moment, and the runners of the heavily loaded frame rushed down the slope, nearly knocking him off his feet. The young man growled savagely, for the blow was a hard one.
“If you could only keep on like that I’d give you an open course,” he said; “but you will not. Never mind; every foot’s a foot gained. Wonder how old Abel is getting on?”
He shot into the collar once more, the trace tightened, and he went on for another hundred yards over the ice and snow.
The young man’s collar was a band of leather, his trace a rope, but no horse ever worked harder or perspired more freely than he, who was self-harnessed to the loaded sledge.
“I don’t mind,” he had said over and over again. “I’d have brought twice as much if I could have moved it. As it is, there’s enough to pay off one’s debts and to keep up, with economy, till the thaw comes; and now we are not going to be so pressed I daresay I shall manage to shoot a moose.”
That journey back from the settlement had been a terrible one, for he had loaded himself far more heavily than was wise, and this had necessitated his sleeping two nights in the snow instead of one. But snow can be warm as well as cold, and he found that a deep furrow with the bright crystals well banked up to keep off the wind, blankets, and a sleeping-bag, made no bad lair for a tired man who was not hungry. He took care of that, for, as he said to himself, “If it is only a donkey who draws he must be well fed.”
With his sledge at his head, tilted on one side to make a sort of canopy, and a couple of blankets stretched over, tent fashion, upon some stout sticks close down to his face, the air was soon warmed by his breath, and thanks to the skin-lined bag he slept soundly each night, and by means of a little pot and a spirit-lamp contrived to obtain a cup of hot tea before starting on his journey in the morning. But it was the lamp of life, heated by the brave spirit within him, that helped him on with his load, so that after being disappointed in not covering the last eight miles over-night, he dragged the sledge up towards their hut just at dawn of the day which succeeded the attack made upon his companion.
By dawn must be understood about ten o’clock, and as he drew near, Dallas could see a fire blazing here, and another there, at different shafts; but there was no sign of glow or smoke from the fire in their own hut; and in the joy that was within him at the successful termination of his expedition, Dallas laughed.
“The lazy beggar!” he said. “Not stirring yet, and no fire. Why, I must have been tugging at this precious load over four hours. He ought to have been up and had a good fire, and the billy boiling. He’s taking it out in sleep and no mistake. Wonder whether the dog’s dead? Poor brute! I don’t suppose he can have held out till now.”