ft alone, rolled
himself again in his thick coverings under the snow, which would protect
him from the night cold. There he would lie absolutely motionless,
hoarding the drops of his life. From time to time, at long intervals,
he would taste the pemmican. And characteristically enough, his regret,
his sorrow, was, not that he must be left to perish, not even that he
must acknowledge himself beaten, but that he was deprived of the chance
for this last desperate dash before death stooped.

When Dick stepped out on the trail, May-may-gwan followed. After a
moment he took cognisance of the crunch of her snow-shoes behind him. He
turned and curtly ordered her back. She persisted. Again he turned, his
face nervous with all the strength he had summoned for the final effort,
shouting at her hoarsely, laying on her the anger of his command. She
seemed not to hear him. He raised his fist and beat her, hitting her
again and again, finally reaching her face. She went down silently,
without even a moan. But when he stared back again, after the next dozen
steps, she had risen and was still tottering on along the Trail.

He threw his hands up with a gesture of abandonment. Then without a
word, grim and terrible, he put his head down and started.

He never looked back. Madness held him. Finesse, saving, the crafty
utilising of small advantages had had their day. It was the moment for
brute strength. All day he swung on in a swirl of snow, tireless. The
landscape swam about him, the white glare searched out the inmost
painful recesses of his brain. He knew enough to keep his eyes shut most
of the time, trusting to Mack. At noon he divided accurately the entire
food supply with the animal. At night he fasted. The two, man and dog,
slept huddled close together for the sake of the warmth. At midnight the
girl crept in broken and exhausted.

The next day Dick was as wonderful. A man strong in meat could not have
travelled so. The light snow whirled behind him in a cloud. The wind of
his going strained the capote from his emaciated face. So, in the nature
of the man, he would go until the end. Then he would give out all at
once, would fall from full life to complete dissolution of forces.
Behind him, pitifully remote, pitifully bent, struggling futilely,
obsessed by a mania as strong as that of these madmen who persisted even
beyond the end of all things, was the figure of the girl. She could not
stand upright, she could not breathe, yet