Now I can't hang you.
You're too near dead as it is. But Twenty Mile is too small for
the pair of us, and you've got to mush. It's two hundred miles to
Holy Cross. You can make it if you're careful not to over-exert.
I'll give you grub, a sled, and three dogs. You'll be as safe as
if you were in jail, for you can't get out of the country. And
I'll give you one chance. You're almost dead. Very well. I shall
send no word to the Company until the spring. In the meantime, the
thing for you to do is to die. Now MUSH!"
"You go to bed!" Jees Uck insisted, when Amos had churned away into
the night towards Holy Cross. "You sick man yet, Neil."
"And you're a good girl, Jees Uck," he answered. "And here's my
hand on it. But you must go home."
"You don't like me," she said simply.
He smiled, helped her on with her PARKA, and led her to the door.
"Only too well, Jees Uck," he said softly; "only too well."
After that the pall of the Arctic night fell deeper and blacker on
the land. Neil Bonner discovered that he had failed to put proper
valuation upon even the sullen face of the murderous and death-
stricken Amos. It became very lonely at Twenty Mile. "For the
love of God, Prentiss, send me a man," he wrote to the agent at
Fort Hamilton, three hundred miles up river.
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