"But I'm tired," she repeated. "I want to put my head on your shoulder." She looked at the spot she had chosen.
Jack became restive. "Easy there," he said uncomfortably. "You're forgetting the compact!"
Linda's eyes slowly filled with tears. "Hang the compact," she said. "I'm tired."
"I'll carry your blanket the rest of the way," Jack said gruffly.
"I won't let you," she said. "You've got a perfectly enormous load already."
"Pshaw! that featherweight won't make any difference," he said, and tied it to his pack.
"My feet hurt me," wailed Linda.
Jack frowned at the elegant little affairs Linda called her "sensible" shoes. "No wonder," he said. "Trying to hit the trail on stilts. Put out your foot."
His axe lay near. Firmly grasping her ankle, with a single stroke he guillotined the greater part of the elevating heel. Linda and Kate both screamed a little at the suddenness of the action, and Linda looked down horrified, as if she expected to see the blood gush forth. Jack laughed, and performed a like operation on the other foot. For the next hundred yards she swore she could not walk at all, but the benefit of the amputation gradually became apparent.
Never was such a long twelve miles. Finally, when most of them had given up hope of ever making an end to this journey, they debouched on the grassy esplanade surrounding the shacks of Fort Geikie. Humpy Jull set about getting dinner, while Jack and Jean Paul cut poplar saplings and constructed a leafy shelter for Linda and Kate. The business of camp had to be carried on; no one seeing these people travelling, and eating together, and sleeping around the same fire, could have guessed how their hearts were divided.