This is bad enough, bad enough!" Rod waited to hear no more, but ran to the clump of spruce to which the courier had directed him.

Among them he found a number of birch trees, and stripping off an armful of bark he had a fire blazing upon the snow by the time the dog mail drew up with its unconscious burden.
While the driver was loosening Wabi's clothes and bundling him in heavy bearskins Rod added dry limbs to the fire until it threw a warm glow for a dozen paces around.

Within a few minutes a pot of ice and snow was melting over the flames and the courier was opening a can of condensed soup.
The deathly pallor had gone from Wabi's face, and Rod, kneeling close beside him, was rejoiced to see the breath coming more and more regularly from between his lips.

But even as he rejoiced the other fear grew heavier at his heart.

What had happened to Minnetaki?
He found himself repeating the question again and again as he watched Wabi slowly returning to life, and, so quickly that it had passed in a minute or two, there flashed through his mind a vision of all that had happened the last few months.