"I scorn, Wherefore my long bow I '11 lay by;

lost the damn' things about five miles back. Didn't notice it at the timehands were too cold, I reckon." "Feel anything in them now?" "Here and there." He nodded as I touched some spots where the blood still flowed, and went on conversationally: "Am I goin' to lose my hands, Doc? Amputation, I mean?" "No." I shook my head definitely. I saw no point in mentioning that some of his fingers were beyond hope. "Will I ever fight again?" Still the same casual, careless tone. "It's difficult to say. You never know" "Will I ever fight again?" "You'll never fight again." There was a long pause, then he said quietly: "You're sure, Doc? You're absolutely sure?" "I'm absolutely sure, Johnny. No boxing commission doctor in the world would ever let you climb into a ring. It would cost him his listing in the Medical Register." "Okay, so that's how it is. Consolidated Plastics of Trenton, New Jersey, have just got themselves a new factory hand: this boxin' racket was too damn' strenuous anyway." There was no regret in his voice, no resignation even, but that meant nothing: like me, he had more important things to worry about. He looked away into the darkness, then twisted round: "What's the matter with that hound of yours, Jackstraw?" "I don't know. I think I'd better find out." Twice while we had been talking Balto had left us, vanished into the snow, and returned after a few minutes: he seemed restless, uneasy. "I won't be long." He rose, followed Balto into the darkness, returned in a short time: "Come and see this, Dr Mason." "This' was a spot less than a hundred yards away, close into the side of the glacier valley. Jackstraw flashed his torch on to the snow-dusted ice. I stooped, made out a black circular patch on the ground and, a few feet away, a smaller discoloured area where the surface snow had frozen solid. "Oil from the gearcase or sump, water from the radiator," Jackstraw said briefly. He altered the torch-beam. "And you can still see the crimp marks of the caterpillars." "And very recent?" I suggested. The drifting snow, the scouring effect of the flying ice-particles had scarcely begun to obliterate the traces left by the treads. "I think so. And they were stopped here a long time, Dr Masonlook at the size of that oil nikon d70 digital cameras patch." "Mechanical trouble?" I hazarded. I didn't really believe it myself. "Riding out the stormCorazzini must have been blind," Jackstraw said definitely. "If the engine had stopped on that pair, they'd never have got it started again." I knew he was right. Neither Smallwood nor Corazzini had shown any mechanical ability at all, and I was convinced that it had been no act. "Perhaps they were still here when we arrived back there? My God, if we'd only carried on another hundred yards!" "Spilt milk, as you say, Dr Mason. Yes, I'm sure they were here then." "We wouldn't have heard their engine?" "Not in this wind." "Jackstraw!" A sudden thought, a flash of hope. "Jackstraw, did you sleep back there?" "No." "How long were we stopped?" "Half an hour, maybe less." "And you think they were still hereGood God, man, they can't be more than a mile away. The wind's dropping right away, it's getting colder and we'll only freeze to death if we stay here, maybe there'll be crevasses on the glacier to hold them up" I was already on my way, running, slipping, stumbling, Jackstraw by my side, Balto leading the way. Zagero was standing up, waitingand the young German girl by his side. "Helene!" I caught her hands. "You all right? How are you feeling?" "Better, much better." She didn't sound all that much better. "I'm sorry I was so silly, Dr Mason. I don't know" "It doesn't matter," I cut in, rather brusquely. "You can walk? Fine, fine." I could feel new hope surging through me as I rapped out a brief explanation to Zagero, within a minute we had Mahler and Marie LeGarde bundled aboard the sledge and were on our way. But the hope was short-lived. We made the best speed we could, at times breaking into a kind of staggering run, but the sledge slowed us up terribly on that uneven surface of the glacier. Once it overturned, throwing both Mahler and Marie LeGarde heavily on to the snow, and after that we were forced to slow down. Another such violent capsizing, or even too severe a jolting, and that sledge would become a bier. From time to time Jackstraw flashed his failing torch