It was the last war; and now it had become merely a question of which would break first. They lay together in the snow, utterly silent, motionless, for all human eyes could see, their faces white with agony, every muscle exerting its full, terrific pressure. Ever Doomsdorf’s fingers closed more tightly at Ned’s throat; ever Ned’s right hand drew slowly at the pistol at Doomsdorf’s belt.
Neither the gun nor the strangling fingers would be needed in a moment more. The strain itself would soon shatter and destroy their mortal hearts. The night seemed to be falling before Ned’s eyes; his familiar, snowy world was dark with the nearing shadow of death. But the pistol was free of the holster now, and he was trying to turn it in his hand.
It took all the strength of his remaining consciousness to exert a last, vital ounce of pressure. Then there was a curious low sound, muffled and dull as sounds heard in a dream. And dreams passed over him, like waves over water, as he relaxed at last, breathing in great sobs, in the reddened drifts.
Bess, emerging into consciousness, crawled slowly toward him. He felt the blessing of her nearing presence even in his half-sleep. But Doomsdorf, their late master, lay curiously inert, his foot still held by the cruel jaws of iron. A great beast-of-prey had fallen in the trap; and the killer-gun had sped a bullet, ranging upward and shattering his wild heart.
All this was just a page in Hell Island’s history. She had had one dynasty a thousand-thousand years before ever Doomsdorf made his first track in her spotless snows; and all that had been done and endured was not more than a ripple in the tides that beat upon her shores. With a new spring she came into her own again. Spring brought the Intrepid, sputtering through the new passages between the floes; and the old island kings returned to rule before ever the masts of the little craft had faded and vanished in the haze.
The Intrepid had taken cargo other than the usual bales of furs. The sounds of human voices were no more to be heard in the silences, and the wolf was no longer startled, fear and wonder at his heart, by the sight of a tall living form on the game trails. The traps were moss-covered and lost, and the wind might rage the night through at the cabin window, and no one would hear and no one would be afraid.
The savage powers of the wild held undisputed sway once more, not again to be set at naught by these self-knowing mortals with a law unto themselves. Henceforth all law was that of the wild, never to be questioned or disobeyed.
It may have been that sometimes, on winter nights, the wolf pack would meet a strange, great shadow on the snow fields: but if so, it was only the one-time master of the island, uneasy in his cold bed; and it was nothing they need fear or to turn them from the trail. It was just a shadow that hurried by, a wan figure buffeted by the wind, in the eerie flare of the Northern Lights. And even this would pass in time. He would be content to sleep, and let the snow drift deeper over his head.
Even the squaw had gone on the Intrepid to join her people in a distant tribe. But there is no need to follow her, or the three that had taken ship with her. On the headlong journey south to spread the word of their rescue, of their halting at the first port to send word and to learn that the occupants of the second lifeboat had been rescued from Tzar Island months before, of Godfrey Cornet’s glory at the sight of his son’s face and the knowledge of the choice he had made, of the light and shadow of their life trails in the cities of men, there is nothing that need be further scrutinized. To Hell Island they were forgotten. The windy snow fields knew them no more.