Polaris awoke with a strange weight at his threat. It was the ilium necklace of Kalin, in which glimmered the red stones. He held it up for an instant in wonder at its presence there and then sprang to the priest's sleeping parka.
It was empty. Kalin was not in the camp!
CHAPTER XX
HOPE—AND A WILL
Without arousing the girl, Polaris made hasty search. Some rods along the back trail, he saw a break in the snow at the side of the trail. There he found the priest lying on his back, with his face turned up to the sun and his keen-pointed dagger piercing his heart. He had stumbled thither as far as his endurance would sustain him. More joyful than ever it had seemed in life was the half smile at the lips of the dead man.
That smile was the only message he had left. He had been dead for hours.
Polaris drew the dagger from the dead heart that had loved him well and hurled it afar in the snow. He smoothed the dress of the priest and bore the body to the camp. Before he aroused the girl he placed the corpse again in the sleeping parka.
Then he called the girl and told her that Kalin was dead, but made no mention of the way the priest had taken.
"Ah, another brave heart stilled—and because of me!" she cried, and the tears came, for she had liked the priest well. As she wept, Polaris told her of the love the man had borne her.