but it clogged their snow-shoes, it
wore them down. A twig tripped them; and the efforts of all three were
needed to aid one to rise. A dozen steps were all they could accomplish
without rest; a dozen short, stumbling steps that were, nevertheless, so
many mile-posts in the progress to their final exhaustion. When one
fell, he lay huddled, unable at once to rally his vital forces to
attempt the exertion of regaining his feet. The day's journey was
pitifully short, pitifully inadequate to the imperious demands of that
onward-leading Trail, and yet each day's journey lessened the always
desperate chance of a return to the game country. In spite of that, it
never again crossed their minds that it might be well to abandon the
task. They might die, but it would be on the Trail, and the death clutch
of their fingers would still be extended toward the north, where dwelt
their enemy, and into whose protective arms their quarry had fled.

As his strength ebbed Dick Herron's energies concentrated more and more
to his monomania of pursuit. The round, full curves of his body had
shrunken to angles, the fresh tints of his skin had turned to leather,
the flesh of his cheeks had sunken, his teeth showed in the drawing back
of his lips. All these signs spoke of exhaustion and of ultimate
collapse. But as the case grew more desperate, he seemed to discover in
some unsuspected quality of his spirit, or perhaps merely of his youth,
a fitful and wonderful power. He collapsed from weakness, to be sure;
but in a moment his iron will, apparently angered to incandescence, got
him to his feet and on his way with an excess of energy. He helped the
others. He urged the dog. And then slowly the fictitious vigour ran out.
The light, the red, terrible glare of madness, faded from his eye; it
became glazed and lifeless; his shoulders dropped; his head hung; he
fell.

Gradually in the transition period between the darkness of winter and
the coming of spring the world took on an unearthly aspect. It became an
inferno of light without corresponding warmth, of blinding, flaring,
intolerable light reflected from the snow. It became luminous, as though
the ghosts of the ancient days of incandescence had revisited the
calendar. It was raw, new, huge, uncouth, embryonic, adapted to the
production of tremendous monsters, unfit for the habitation of tiny men
with delicate physical and mental adjustments. Only to the mind of a
Caliban could it be other than t