ike the Arctic night. The shadows faded away, the shores
loomed up and the illimitable sweep of the plain lifted itself into
vision as if from out of a great sea of receding fog. In the quarter
hour's phenomenon between the last of darkness and wide day Philip
stood straining his eyes southward over the white path of the
Coppermine. It was Celie, huddled close at his side, who turned her
eyes first from the trail their enemies would follow. She faced the
north, and the cry that came from her lips brought Philip about like a
shot. His first sensation was one of amazement that they had not yet
passed beyond the last line of timber. Not more than a third of a mile
distant the river ran into a dark strip of forest that reached in from
the western plain like a great finger. Then he saw what Celie had seen.
Close up against the timber a spiral of smoke was rising into the air.
He made out in another moment the form of a cabin, and the look in
Celie's staring face told him the rest. She was sobbing breathless
words which he could not understand, but he knew that they had won
their race, and that it was Armin's place. And Armin was not dead. He
was alive, as Blake had said--and it was about breakfast time. He had
held up under the tremendous strain of the night until now--and now he
was filled with an uncontrollable desire to laugh. The curious thing
about it was that in spite of this desire no sound came from his
throat. He continued to stare until Celie turned to him and swayed into
his arms. In the moment of their triumph her strength was utterly gone.
And then the thing happened which brought the life back into him again
with a shock. From far up the black finger of timber where it bellied
over the horizon of the plain there floated down to them a chorus of
sound. It was a human sound--the yapping, wolfish cry of an Eskimo
horde closing in on man or beast. They had heard that same cry close on
the heels of the fight in the clearing. Now it was made by many voices
instead of two or three. It was accompanied almost instantly by the
clear, sharp report of a rifle, and a moment later the single shot was
followed by a scattering fusillade. After that there was silence.

Quickly Philip bundled Celie on the sledge and drove the dogs ahead,
his eyes on a wide opening in the timber three or four hundred yards
above the river. Five minutes later the sledge drew up in front of the
cabin. In that time they heard no further outcry or sou