They broke camp in the dark the next morning, and the forced marches they made during the next seven days wore the half-starved men terribly. Sometimes they had to contend with fresh snow, in which the sled runners sank; sometimes they plodded doggedly with lowered heads while a raging wind drove the stinging flakes into their pinched faces; and there were days of bitter frost when they could not keep warm. Still, they crept on across the rugged desolation, and one evening reached a belt of timber beneath a low range that stretched across their path. The ridge was broken by a gap a mile or two ahead, and it was there that Andrew had instructed Mappin to make the second cache. A crescent moon rose above the dark tree-tops as they lighted a fire. Andrew glanced at the hillside irresolutely. "There's food up yonder, if we could get our hands on it, and I would enjoy a good supper, Heaven knows; but I don't feel equal to facing another disappointment," he said. "I'm afraid we'll have to wait until to-morrow." "That's my feeling," Carnally agreed. "I've gone as far as I'm able, and that grub won't be found easily. You may as well gather some wood and fill the kettle." When they had eaten the few morsels he allowed them they sat smoking beside the fire. The thin spruce boughs above them were laden with snow which now and then fell upon the brands; a malignant wind swept between the slender trunks and blew the smoke about the men. After a while the casual talk, which had cost them an effort to keep up, died away, and there was a long silence until Carnally spoke. "I guess we're all thinking about those provisions. We'll look for them at sun-up. What I've been trying to do for several days is to put myself in Mappin's place." "It must have been difficult," Andrew remarked. "If I thought you could do so, I'd disown you. But go on." "Well," said Carnally, "we have agreed that he meant to make it hard for us to find the cache; but he'd try to fix things so the packers he sent up with the truck shouldn't guess his object. He wouldn't tell them to pick a place where nobody would think of looking." "You're assuming that he'd employ honest men," Graham objected. "What's to prevent his hiring three or four toughs and bribing them to say nothing?" "He's too smart," said Carnally promptly. "He'd know that if we got lost up here the fellows could keep striking him for money and he'd have to pay; while if we got through, there'd be a risk of our finding them and buying them over. Besides, men of the kind he'd want are scarce in the bush. If they're to be found, it's hanging round the saloons in the cities." "Then we'll assume that the boys were square. That would make it harder for him and easier for us. What follows?" Carnally drank some tea from a blackened can before he answered.