On the third day, with Arctic vagary, the wind gasped reluctantly and scurried over the range.  In its wake the surging ocean churned loudly and the back-water behind the town, held by the dam of freezing slush-ice at the river mouth, was skimmed by a thin ice-paper, pierced here and there by the up-ended piles from beneath.  This held the night’s snow, so that morning showed the village girt on three sides by a stream soft-carpeted and safe to the eye, but failing beneath the feet of a child.

“You’re eyes are comin’ along mighty slow,” worried George.  “I’m hopin’ his reverence is up to his gills in drifts back yonder.  “We must leave him a sled trail for a souvenir.”

“How can we, with the place guarded?”

“Hitch the dogs and run for it by night, He’ll burn us out when he comes.  Fine targets we’d make on the snow by the light of a burning shack.  If ye can see to shoot we’ll go tonight.  Hello!  What’s that?”

Outside came the howl of malamoots and the cry of men.  Leaping to the window, George rubbed it free and stared into the sunshine.

“Too late!  Too late!” he said.  “Here he comes!  It’s time I killed him.”  He spoke gratingly, with the dull anger of years.

On the bright surface of the opposite hillside a sled bearing a muffled figure appeared silhouetted against the glisten of the crust.  Its team, maddened by the village scent, poured down the incline toward the river bank and the guide swung onto the runners behind, while the voice of the people rose to their priest.  In a whirl of soft snow they drove down onto the treachery of the ice.  The screams of the natives frenzied the pack and they rioted out onto the bending sheet, while the long sledge, borne by its momentum, shot forward till the splitting cry of the ice sounded over the lamentations.  It slackened, sagged and disappeared in a surge of congealing waters.  The wheel dogs were dragged into the opening and their mates ahead jerked backward onto them.  In a fighting tangle, all settled into the swirl.

Orloff leaped from the sinking sled, but hindered by his fur swaddling, crashed through and lunged heavily in his struggles to mount the edge of the film.  As he floundered onto the caving surface it let him back and the waters covered him time and again.  He pitched oddly about, and for the first time they saw his eyes were bound tightly with bandages, which he strove to loosen.

“My God!  He’s snow-blind!” cried George, and in a moment he appeared among the frantic mob fringing the shore.

The guide broke his way toward a hummock of old ice forming an islet near by, and the priest half swam, half scrambled behind, till they crawled out upon this solid footing.  Here the wintry wind searched them and their dripping clothes stiffened quickly.  Orloff dragged the strips from his face, and as the sun glitter pierced his eyes he writhed as though seared by the naked touch of hot steel.