Breaking the long silence, Spurling said, "Thank God, he can come no further."
"But his body awaits us at Murder Point," Granger replied.
"I can deal with men's bodies," Spurling said. Then they moved onward, pressing up against the current.
At the first hint of daylight they landed and hid themselves, lest, in that deserted land, their presence should be detected. The precaution proved wise, for about noon a party of belated voyageurs passed northward en route for the Crooked Creek. They were singing, keeping time with their paddles; their careless gladness made the hunted men, for all their gold, feel envious.
They dared not kindle a fire, and at last, that they might save the little warmth they had, were compelled to lie down together, breast to breast, clasping one another closely as though they were friends. At sunset they again set out. All night long to Granger the sky seemed filled with uncouth legendary animals, which trooped across the horizon file on file. Sometimes they were Beorn's camels, sometimes they were timber-wolves or brindled huskies with yellow faces, but more often they were creatures of evil passions, for which there are no names. To avoid looking at them, he would keep his eyes in the canoe or would stare at Spurling's back. But the sight of his companion's monotonous movements, compelling him to go on working when his arms ached and his body seemed broken, caused such mad fury to arise within him that he feared for his own actions, and was glad to return his eyes to the clouds. At dawn, as though a golden door had been opened, the creatures passed in and disappeared, and he saw them no more till sunset.
For himself, he would gladly have lain down, and died, had not Spurling with the same indomitable courage which he had displayed on the Dawson trail, roused him up and compelled him with his brutal jibes to play the man. By the end of the first day on the Last Chance their food gave out, and since leaving the hut all their meals had been scanty; then they would willingly have given a third of the gold which they carried in exchange for a hatful of the flour which, in their greed for nuggets, they had left behind on the Forbidden River's banks. If a bird flew over their heads, they dared not fire a gun lest its report should be heard, so great was their fear of possible arrest.
As their weakness increased, the downward rush of the current seemed to gather strength; there were times when their progress was almost imperceptible. Sufficient snow had already fallen to cloak the land in whiteness, and they were very conscious that every day the temperature, was sinking lower. In the middle of the seventh night of their journey they felt something grate against their prow, and they knew that the river was freezing over. They had only five more miles to traverse; they were too exhausted and stiff with cold to attempt to reach their destination by walking along the bank, even if they had been willing to abandon their treasure; so there was nothing for it but to make one last effort. So nerveless were they with fatigue that, when they went by the bend, Spurling forgot to be afraid of the thing which he had seen there; he had not the strength to remember. They reached the pier when the dawn was breaking, so faint that they could not rise and crawl out. They would have drifted back over the way which they had travelled, had not the ice closed in and held them.
Two hours after their arrival, Eyelids looked out from the window at Murder Point and, seeing them, came to their rescue and lifted them into the shack.
They had arrived none too early, for that day the river froze over, the snow fell in earnest, and the Keewatin winter settled down.