strength of
meat lacked them: the strength of despair remained. A rapid dash might
bring them to grapples. And somewhere in the depths of their indomitable
spirits, somewhere in the line of their hardy, Anglo-Saxon descent,
they knew they would find the necessary vitality.

Stars glittered like sparks on polished steel. On the northwest wind
swooped the chill of the winter's end, and in that chill was the breath
of the North. Sam Bolton, crushed by the weight of a great exhaustion,
recognised the familiar menace, and raised his head, gazing long from
glazed eyes out into the Silent Places.

"Not yet!" he said aloud.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

But the next morning he was unable to rise. The last drop of his
vitality had run out. At length the connection between his will and his
body had been severed, so that the latter was no longer under his
command. After the first moment he knew well enough what this meant,
knew that here he must die, here he must lie crushed finally under the
sheer weight of his antagonist. It was as though she, the great North,
had heard his defiant words the night before, and thus proved to him
their emptiness.

And yet the last reserves of the old man's purpose were not yet
destroyed. Here he must remain, it is true, but still he possessed next
his hand the human weapon he had carried so far and so painfully by the
exercise of his ingenuity and the genius of his long experience. He had
staggered under its burden as far as he could; now was the moment for
launching it. He called the young man to him.

"I cannot go on," said he, in gasps. "Leave the sledge. Take the dog. Do
not lose him. Travel fast. You must get him by to-morrow night. Sleep
some to-night. Travel fast."

Dick nodded. He understood. Already the scarlet hate, the dogged mad
glare of a set purpose was glazing his vision. It was the sprint at the
end of the race. He need no longer save himself.

He took a single blanket and the little shreds of dog meat that
remained. Some of the pemmican, a mere scrap, he left with Sam. Mack he
held in leash.

"I will live five days," went on Sam, "perhaps six. I will try to live.
If you should come back in that time,--with meat--the caribou--you
understand." His voice trailed away, unwilling to mock the face of
probability with such a chance.

Dick nodded again. He had nothing to say. He wrung the old man's hand
and turned away.

Mack thrust his nose forward. They started. Sam, le