"I don't know. Don't remember this split, but the ice was working under me. Perhaps the snow had covered it and now it's fallen in." They scrambled forward, following the crevasse, but could find no means of passing it and now and then the ice trembled ominously. At last, when the opposite side projected a little, Lisle suddenly sprang out from the edge and alighted safely. "It's easy!" he called, stripping off his long skin coat and flinging one end of it across the chasm to Crestwick. "Get hold and face the jump!" It was not a time for hesitation; the exhausted lad dare not contemplate the gap, lest his courage fail him, and nerving himself for an effort, he leaped. Striking the edge on the other side, he plunged forward as Lisle dragged at the coat, and then rolled over in the snow. He was up in a moment, gasping hard, almost astonished to find himself in security, and Lisle led him back to the snow-covered shingle. "It strikes me as fortunate that I came to look for you," he observed. "You'd probably have ended by walking into the river." "Thanks," said Crestwick simply. "It isn't the first hole you've pulled me out of." They reached the camp and the lad, shaking the snow off his furs, sat down wearily on a few branches laid close to the sheltering boulder, while Lisle took a frying-pan and kettle off the fire, and afterward filled his pipe again and watched his companion while he ate. Crestwick had changed since he left England; his face was thinner, and the hint of sensuality and empty self-assurance had faded out of it. His eyes were less bold, but they were steadier; and, sitting in the firelight, clad in dilapidated furs, he looked somehow more refined than he had done in evening dress in Marple's billiard-room. When he spoke, as he did at intervals, the confident tone which had once characterized him was no longer evident. He had learned to place a juster estimate upon his value in the icy North. "I was uncommonly glad to see the fire," he said at length. "Another mile or two would have beaten me; though I spent nearly twice as long in coming up from the Forks as the prospectors said it would take. I was going light, too." "They've been doing this kind of thing most of their lives. You couldn't expect to equal them. Where did you sleep last night?" "In some withered stuff among a clump of willows; I scraped the snow off it. That is, I lay down there, but as the fire wouldn't burn well, I don't think I got much rest. Part of the time I wondered what I was staying in this country for. I didn't seem to find any sensible answer." "You could get out of it when the freighters go down with the dogs and sledges," Lisle suggested. "It would be a good deal more comfortable at Marple's, for instance." "Do you want to get rid of me? I suppose I'm not much help."