to the edge of frost-bite, and left his fingers stiff when he had rubbed that danger away. He fed the living remainder of O'Hara's team while the dog slunk at his heels, explaining the fear that was in him. Then he lit up the stove and fed himself, with O'Hara unobjecting in the bunk against the wall; and later, he brought horse and sled to the door, got O'Hara aboard with difficulty, and started back with the dog at his feet for the eight-hour drive into Grey Wolf.
Death meant less to him than to many men. The tragedies that belong to the loneliness meant less, because familiarity had worn away the edges that cut. He sat hunched in his furs, with keen eyes only uncovered, and the sledge burring on the hard-stamped trail. Up in the pale night the moon stared nakedly; the Lights blew up like white smoke from the world's pipe of peace, then melted suddenly into a spirit-dance of indecent glee, with the swishing of silken flags and the crackle of far-off laughter.
The snow lay in wind-rows to all horizons, and every wave of it was a swathe flung down to die. The dog at Dick's feet raised himself to smell the air and howl, and back at the snake-fence a coyote barked in answer. Then, far across the waste, drifted their shadows, one by one; slinking, silent, seeking blood. The single howl of a wolf rang metallic out of the forest ahead, and Dick's senses, always vividly alive, understood. The North-West was abroad amongst her own; indifferent to those who served her and died by her hand; splendid in her arrogance, calm with irresistible power, with careless cruelty. All the wild things that she nurtured fought her, tooth and claw, for their subsistence. All the soft-treading, keen-eyed men of the back-trail met her, breast to breast and grip to iron grip. She played with them, kissed them with her fragrant lips of summer, taught them to love her, and then fastened on them swiftly with her sharp white teeth and her breath that kills.
Dick looked at a couple of big stars that watched him indolently over the flank of the range, and his mind slid back to Grange's Andree—the girl who had no soul for the man who loved her.
The Lights rollicked in their game of hide-and-seek
