It can't be done." Seaforth said nothing.

The last fall had shaken him severely, and he had realized since they started that the task before them was almost beyond the power of any two men, but had refused to contemplate what must happen if they failed in it.

Now he could see that it was impossible, but dazed with utter weariness as he was he could not think consecutively, and only felt a numbing dismay that in some strange fashion softened the blow, while in place of considering the future his memory reverted without his will to the incidents of that strange journey.

They rose blurred before him as the creations of an evil dream, the wild descent of a rapid, the desperate effort of the portage, the long hours of toil at the paddle, and endless unrolling of whitened pines that crawled by them through the snow.

Now at least, when he could do no more, that stupendous toil was finished.