In the morning, Brent, babbling for whiskey, drank tea. And at the noon camp he drank much strong tea and ate a little pilot bread and a small piece of moose meat. He walked about five miles in the afternoon before he was again tied on the sled, and that night he helped Joe Pete set up the tent. For supper he drank a quart of strong bitter tea, and ate more bread and meat, and that night,
after tossing restlessly till midnight, he fell asleep. The shapes came, and the voices, but they seemed less loathsome than the night before. They took definite concrete shapes, shapes of things Brent knew, but of impossible color. Cerese lizards and little pink snakes skipped lightly across the walls of the tent, and bunches of luminous angleworms writhed harmlessly in the dark corners. The skipping and writhing annoyed, disgusted, but inspired no terror, so Brent slept.
The third day he ate some breakfast, and did two stretches on snowshoes during the day that totaled sixteen or eighteen miles, and that night he devoured a hearty meal and slept the sleep of the weary.
The fourth day he did not resort to the sled at all. Nor all during the day did he once ask for a drink of hooch. Day after day they mushed eastward, and higher and higher they climbed toward the main divide of the mountains. As they progressed the way became rougher and steeper, the two alternated between breaking trail and work at the gee-pole. With the passing of the days the craving for liquor grew less and less insistent. Only in the early morning was the gnawing desire strong upon him, and to assuage this desire he drank great quantities of strong tea. The outward manifestation of this desire was an intense irritability, that caused him to burst into unreasoning rage at a frozen guy rope or a misplaced mitten, and noting
this, Joe Pete was careful to see that breakfast was ready before he awakened Brent.
On the tenth day they topped the Bonnet Plume pass and began the long descent of the eastern slope. That night a furious blizzard roared down upon them from out of the North, and for two days they lay snowbound, venturing from the tent only upon short excursions for firewood. Upon the first of these days Brent shaved, a process that, by reason of a heavy beard of two months' growth, and a none too sharp razor, consumed nearly two hours. When the ordeal was over he regarded himself for a long time in the little mirror, scowling at the red, beefy cheeks, and at the little broken veins that showed blue-red at the end of his nose. He noted with approval that his eyes had cleared of the bilious yellow look, and that the network of tiny red veins were no longer visible upon the eyeballs. With approval, too, he prodded and pinched the hardening muscles in his legs and arms.
When the storm passed they pushed on, making heavy going in the loose snow. The rejuvenation of Brent was rapid now. Each evening found him less tired and in better heart, and each morning found him ready and eager for the trail.
"To hell with the hooch," he said, one evening, as he and the Indian sat upon their robes in the door of the tent and watched the red flames lick at the firewood, "I wouldn't take a drink now if I had a barrel of it!"
"Mebbe-so not now, but in de morning you tak' de beeg drink—you bet," opined the Indian solemnly.
"The hell I would!" flared Brent, and then he laughed. "There is no way of proving it, but if there were, I'd like to bet you this sack of dust against your other shirt that I wouldn't." He waited for a reply, but Joe Pete merely shrugged, and smoked on in silence.