is an ancestry which has survived for a
thousand centuries, and for a hundred thousand centuries, and your line
must not stop here. It cannot. Your ancestry will not permit it.
Instinct is stronger than the will. The race is mightier than you. Come,
Dave, let us go. We are young yet, and life is good. Come."

Winapie, passing out of the cabin to feed the dogs, caught his attention
and caused him to shake his head and weakly to reiterate. But the
woman's hand slipped about his neck, and her cheek pressed to his. His
bleak life rose up and smote him,--the vain struggle with pitiless
forces; the dreary years of frost and famine; the harsh and jarring
contact with elemental life; the aching void which mere animal existence
could not fill. And there, seduction by his side, whispering of
brighter, warmer lands, of music, light, and joy, called the old times
back again. He visioned it unconsciously. Faces rushed in upon him;
glimpses of forgotten scenes, memories of merry hours; strains of song
and trills of laughter--

"Come, Dave, Come. I have for both. The way is soft." She looked about
her at the bare furnishings of the cabin. "I have for both. The world
is at our feet, and all joy is ours. Come! come!"

She was in his arms, trembling, and he held her tightly. He rose to his
feet . . . But the snarling of hungry dogs, and the shrill cries of
Winapie bringing about peace between the combatants, came muffled to his
ear through the heavy logs. And another scene flashed before him. A
struggle in the forest,--a bald-face grizzly, broken-legged, terrible;
the snarling of the dogs and the shrill cries of Winapie as she urged
them to the attack; himself in the midst of the crush, breathless,
panting, striving to hold off red death; broken-backed, entrail-ripped
dogs howling in impotent anguish and desecrating the snow; the virgin
white running scarlet with the blood of man and beast; the bear,
ferocious, irresistible, crunching, crunching down to the core of his
life; and Winapie, at the last, in the thick of the frightful muddle,
hair flying, eyes flashing, fury incarnate, passing the long hunting
knife again and again--Sweat started to his forehead. He shook off the
clinging woman and staggered back to the wall. And she, knowing that the
moment had come, but unable to divine what was passing within him, felt
all she had gained slipping away.

"Dave! Dave!" she cried. "I will not give you up! I will no