"A man and his wife were, but they pulled stakes this morning. No; there are no other women except--except two or three in a tent, which--er--which will not do for you." "Do you think I am afraid of their hospitality?" she demanded, hotly. "As you said, they are women." "But I said it would not do," he answered, absently, staring at the straining canvas and listening to the roar of the storm. "A man would die in the open on a night like this. "And the other tents are crowded to the walls," he mused. "I happen to know. They have stored all their caches inside because of the water, and they haven't room to turn around. Besides, a dozen other strangers are storm-bound with them. Two or three asked to spread their beds in here to-night if they couldn't pinch room elsewhere. Evidently they have; but that does not argue that there is any surplus space left. And anyway--" He broke off helplessly. The inevitableness of the situation was growing. "Can I make Deep Lake to-night?" Frona asked, forgetting herself to sympathize with him, then becoming conscious of what she was doing and bursting into laughter. "But you couldn't ford the river in the dark." He frowned at her levity. "And there are no camps between." "Are you afraid?" she asked with just the shadow of a sneer. "Not for myself." "Well, then, I think I'll go to bed." "I might sit up and keep the fire going," he suggested after a pause. "Fiddlesticks!" she cried. "As though your foolish little code were saved in the least! We are not in civilization. This is the trail to the Pole. Go to bed." He elevated his shoulders in token of surrender. "Agreed. What shall I do then?" "Help me make my bed, of course. Sacks laid crosswise! Thank you, sir, but I have bones and muscles that rebel. Here-- Pull them around this way." Under her direction he laid the sacks lengthwise in a double row. This left an uncomfortable hollow with lumpy sack-corners down the middle; but she smote them flat with the side of the axe, and in the same manner lessened the slope to the walls of the hollow. Then she made a triple longitudinal fold in a blanket and spread it along the bottom of the long depression. "Hum!" he soliloquized. "Now I see why I sleep so badly. Here goes!" And he speedily flung his own sacks into shape. "It is plain you are unused to the trail," she informed him, spreading the topmost blanket and sitting down. "Perhaps so," he made answer. "But what do you know about this trail life?" he growled a little later. "Enough to conform," she rejoined equivocally, pulling out the dried wood from the oven and replacing it with wet. "Listen to it! How it storms!" he exclaimed. "It's growing worse, if worse be possible."