Stevens, dreaming of twenty horses plunging to death among the rocks in the river, slept uneasily.

He awoke before it was dawn, but when he dragged himself from his tepee, moving quietly not to awaken his boy, he found John Aldous on his knees before a small fire, slicing thin rashers of bacon into a frying-pan.

The weight of his loss was in the tired packer's eyes and face and the listless droop of his shoulders.

John Aldous, with three hours between the blankets to his credit, was as cheery as the crackling fire itself.

He had wanted to whistle for the last half-hour.