All about him the landscape swayed like mist; the suns danced indecent revel; specks and blotches, the beginning of snow-blindness, swam grotesquely projected into a world less real than they.  Living things moved everywhere.  Ordinarily the man paid no attention to them, knowing them for what they were, but once, warned by some deep and subtle instinct, he made the effort to clear his vision and saw a fox.  By another miracle he killed it.  The carcass he divided with his dog.  He gave none of it to the girl.

By evening of the second day he had not yet overtaken his quarry.  But the trail was evidently fresher, and the fox’s meat gave him another chance.  He slept, as before, with Mack the hound; and, as before, May-may-gwan crept in hours later to fall exhausted.

And over the three figures, lying as dead, the North whirred in the wind, waiting to stoop, triumphing, glorying that she had brought the boasts of men to nothing.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

The next morning was the third day.  There was no delay in getting started.  All Dick had to do was to roll his blanket.  He whirled on, still with his impetuous, fictitious vigour unimpaired.  The girl staggered after him ten feet, then pitched forward.  He turned uncertainly.  She reached out to touch him.  Her eyes said a farewell.  It was the end.

Dick stood a moment, his eyes vague.  Then mechanically he put his head down, mechanically he looked for the Trail, mechanically he shot away alone, alone except for the faithful, gaunt hound, the only thing that remained to him out of a whole world of living beings.

To his fevered vision the Trail was becoming fresher.  Every step he took gave him the impression of so much gained, as though the man he was in pursuit of was standing still waiting to be taken.  For the first time in months the conviction of absolute success took possession of him.  His sight cleared, his heart beat strong, his whole being quivered with vigour.  The illusion of the North faded away like a mist.  The world was a flat plain of snow, with here and there a stunted spruce, knee-high, protruding above it, and with here and there an inequality of hidden bowlders and rounded knolls.  Far off was the horizon, partially hidden in the normal snow-fog of this time of year.  All objects were stationary, solid, permanent.  Even the mock suns were only what was to be expected in so high a latitude.  Dick was conscious of arguing these things to himself with extraordinary accuracy of logic.  He proved a glow of happiness in the clarity of his brain, in the ease of his body, in the certainty of his success.  The candle flared clear before its expiration.