"I guess I'd dare a lot of things for certain reasons. See here, you've bin through a hell of a lot up here, but you've never suffered hunger, and it wouldn't be good for you, I'm thinking. Cold and frostbite is one thing, and hunger's another. There's nothin' like starvation to freeze up your heart. It's like a red-hot iron inside, gittin' redder and redder.... Shootin' a starvin' dog's a mercy, I reckon." "Is it any worse for me than you?" "Yep." With that dogmatic assertion he relapsed into silence. Angela flew to her own small supply of food and produced the requisities for a good meal. The mixture was soon spluttering over the fire, emitting odors almost unendurable to the hungry, watching Jim. Angela turned it out on to a plate. "Come along," she said. "I told you----" She went to him and put her arm round him. "If you've any regard for me--if you want to make me happy, eat that." It was the first time she had ever displayed any real depth of feeling, and it was like balm to him. But his obstinacy prevailed, for in the dish was a normal day's ration for the two of them. "Maybe you think we'll drop across food on trail, but we won't. There's nothin' to be got until the first freighter comes up the river. Better put it back." She took her arm away and went to the dish. "If you won't eat, I'll throw it away--I swear I will!" "Angela!" "It's your own maxim, your own teaching--share and share alike. I won't recognize any other doctrine. It shall go to the birds unless...." She meant what she said, and he knew it. "All right--I'll eat," he mumbled. Half an hour later, feeling a hundred per cent. better, he rose to his feet and entered the tent, where Angela was busily engaged putting down the blankets on improvised mattresses of gathered moss and young bracken. "See," she said, "I've split up the food again. How long will it last if eked out?" He turned out one of the sacks and ran his eye over the contents. "Two days, at a pinch." "And how soon can we make Dawson?" "A week, hard plugging." "Then it looks as though the 'pinch' will have to be resorted to--and expanded." He saw she was smiling as she tucked his bottom blanket carefully under the moss. "When you put it that way we can make anything," he said. "If I had a canoe we could push up the river a good deal faster than overland, but I ain't got one--and that's the rub." "Then we'll have to depend on luck." "No friend o' mine. Luck don't cut much ice up here." Angela shook her head. She had a slight suspicion that luck had not entirely deserted them. Though the future seemed black and threatening, were there not compensating elements? There were worse things than dying in the wilderness with a "wild man." CHAPTER XX COMPLICATIONS