When supper time came, Harding roused Blake and tried to give him a little food.

He could not eat, however, and soon sank again into a restless sleep.

His companions sat disconsolately beside the fire as night closed in.

Their clothes were damp and splashed with mud, for they had had to cross a patch of very soft muskeg to gather wood among a clump of rotting spruces.

The wind was searching, the reeds clashed and rustled drearily, and even the splash of the ripples on a neighboring pool was depressing.