for himself out of this trouble. He knew the spirit of the man too well for that. And he knew also that, if Tempest lived, the thing which he had to say to him was going to be infinitely more terrible than he had expected it to be.
There was blood on Tempest's face and in his hair. Dick wiped it off and found the bullet-graze on the temple which had stunned him. He sat back with a breath of relief and pulled out his flask. It was empty, as it had been too many times of late, and Dick felt the burn of shame as he tilted it. Tempest had no flask, and so Dick flung snow over the still face; softening it first by the warmth of his hands. Presently Tempest shivered, feeling the icy air strike into him. Across the snow Job was wailing and shuddering with chattering teeth. Then Tempest sat up with Dick's aid; sick and giddy, and stupidly feeling the blood than ran on his face. He seemed fully as ashamed as Dick himself of the thing which he had done; and, by consent, both ignored causes and spoke only of effects as Dick washed the skin round the wound and bound it up with torn handkerchiefs. He had to use a piece of his shirt when he came to Job, and the man wept aloud at the stout and effective tournoquet, and at the winding of the broken limb into a hastily-stripped cradle of birch-bark.
"I guess you've lost enough blood to cool that courage of yours," remarked Dick, dragging him up to his feet. "Now, show us the way back to camp. You should know these trails better than I do."
Both Dick's patients were staggering with weakness when they reached the camp, and it was an hour later when they took the trail to Grey Wolf; Tempest riding a little behind, silent, and somewhat giddy still, and Dick two yards ahead, with Job Kesikaw on the lame Indian pony at his knee. The moon was gone, but, for the first time in several months, the Northern Lights pulsed in the sky, in long direct streamers, lividly-blue and pure. They hung the forest-trees with a dim, unearthly sheen, and in the light of it Dick saw the night animals pass and pass again, without sound. There was little pleasure to Dick in that ride home. He was thinking grimly of what would have to be said on the morrow. But over Tempest a curi-
