ship.

His movements were slow. He shook as with a palsy. When he started to
collect dry moss, he found he could not rise to his feet. He tried again
and again, then contented himself with crawling about on hands and knees.
Once he crawled near to the sick wolf. The animal dragged itself
reluctantly out of his way, licking its chops with a tongue which seemed
hardly to have the strength to curl. The man noticed that the tongue was
not the customary healthy red. It was a yellowish brown and seemed
coated with a rough and half-dry mucus.

After he had drunk a quart of hot water the man found he was able to
stand, and even to walk as well as a dying man might be supposed to walk.
Every minute or so he was compelled to rest. His steps were feeble and
uncertain, just as the wolf's that trailed him were feeble and uncertain;
and that night, when the shining sea was blotted out by blackness, he
knew he was nearer to it by no more than four miles.

Throughout the night he heard the cough of the sick wolf, and now and
then the squawking of the caribou calves. There was life all around him,
but it was strong life, very much alive and well, and he knew the sick
wolf clung to the sick man's trail in the hope that the man would die
first. In the morning, on opening his eyes, he beheld it regarding him
with a wistful and hungry stare. It stood crouched, with tail between
its legs, like a miserable and woe-begone dog. It shivered in the chill
morning wind, and grinned dispiritedly when the man spoke to it in a
voice that achieved no more than a hoarse whisper.

The sun rose brightly, and all morning the man tottered and fell toward
the ship on the shining sea. The weather was perfect. It was the brief
Indian Summer of the high latitudes. It might last a week. To-morrow or
next day it might he gone.

In the afternoon the man came upon a trail. It was of another man, who
did not walk, but who dragged himself on all fours. The man thought it
might be Bill, but he thought in a dull, uninterested way. He had no
curiosity. In fact, sensation and emotion had left him. He was no
longer susceptible to pain. Stomach and nerves had gone to sleep. Yet
the life that was in him drove him on. He was very weary, but it refused
to die. It was because it refused to die that he still ate muskeg
berries and minnows, drank his hot water, and kept a wary eye on the sick
wolf.

He followed the trail of the other man who dragged