Waseche Bill, despite the pain of his broken leg, insisted upon being propped into position to brake his own sled. It was the heavier sled, double-freighted by reason of the stampede of Waseche's dogs, that caused Connie and O'Brien the hardest labour; for its loss meant death by exposure and starvation.
Night overtook them with scarce half the distance behind them, and they camped on a small plateau overlooking a deep ravine.
Morning found them again at their work in the face of a stiff gale from the south-west. The sun rose and hung low in the cloudless sky above the sea of gleaming white peaks. The mercury expanded in the tube of the thermometer and the wind lost its chill. Connie and O'Brien removed their heavy parkas, and Waseche Bill threw back his hood and frowned uneasily:
"Sho' wisht this heah Chinook w'd helt off about ten days mo'," he said. "I ain't acquainted through heah, but I reckon nine oah ten days had ort to put us into Eagle if the snow holds."
"It's too early for the break-up!" exclaimed Connie.
"Yeh, fo' the break-up, it is. But these heah Chinooks yo' cain't count on. I've saw three foot of snow melt in a night an' a day—an' then tuhn 'round an' freeze up fo' two months straight. If this heah wind don't shift oah die down again tomorrow mo'nin', we ah goin' to have to hole up an' wait fo' a freeze."
"The grub won't hold out long," ventured Connie, eyeing the sled. "But there must be game on this side of the divide."
"They betteh be! I sho' do hate it—bein' crippled up this-a-way an' leavin' yo'-all to do the wo'k."
"Niver 'yez moind about that!" exclaimed O'Brien. "Sur-re, we'd all be wor-rkin' as har-rd as we could an-nyways, an' ut w'dn't make ut no aisyer f'r us bekase ye was wor-rkin', too. Jist set ye by an' shmoke yer poipe, an' me an' th' b'y'll have us on th' river be noon."
By dint of hard labour and much snubbing and braking, O'Brien's prediction was fulfilled and the midday meal was eaten upon the snow-covered ice of the Kandik.