ZAKKI THE JOURNEY $7 



and smooth ; there was no snow to clog the runners. 

 To-morrow, perhaps, they would run fifty miles ! 



The night fell clear and keen ; but before dawn 

 a powdery snow began to fall, and the going was 

 slower than on the first day. Zakki toiled and 

 trudged, and at nightfall they reached the foot of 

 the mountain pass, with another forty miles accom- 

 plished. The poor man was up most of that night, 

 pushing his hand through the ventilation hole at 

 the top of the snow house to try the wind, or peer- 

 ing through it in a vain search for the stars. When 

 daylight came it was snowing fast ; but Zakki knew 

 the way, and decided to push on, for the child 

 would be quite safe in his canvas tent. The wind 

 was blowing against them as they faced the mountain 

 pass ; but they crossed the summit in a blinding, 

 freezing snowstorm, and camped on the ice below. 



On the evening of the fourth day the dogs raced 

 across the last bay towards the twinkling lights of 

 our village. Zakki was tired, but he was smiling. 

 His weary waiting was over ; he had crossed the 

 trackless bays and the mountain solitudes of his 

 long trail alone, travelling through the storm, be- 

 cause he simply would not be delayed, helping the 

 dogs to haul their load uphill, and dragging on it as 

 they rushed down, guiding and heartening them, 

 with his own heart nearly breaking, buoyed up 

 through it all with a great hope he was taking little 

 Zakki to the doctor. 



I think the doctor never had a harder task than 

 the one he found that night the task of breaking 



