Whose was the strength that had laid him low! Whose mighty muscles had broken that powerful neck! Vivid consciousness swept back to Ned; and with it a deep and growing exultation that thrilled the inmost chords of his being. It was an ancient madness, the heritage of savage days when man and beast fought for dominance in the open places; but it had not weakened and dimmed in the centuries. His eye kindled, and he stood shivering with excitement over his dead.
He had conquered. He had fought his way to victory. And was there any reason in heaven or earth why he should not fight on to freedom—out of Doomsdorf’s power? The moving spirit of inspiration seemed to bear him aloft.
Drunk with his own triumph, Ned could not immediately focus his attention on any definite train of thought. At first he merely gave himself up to dreams, a luxury that since the first day on the island he had never permitted himself. For many moments after the exultation of his victory had begun to pass away, he was still so entranced by dreams of freedom that he could not consider ways and means.
The word freedom had come to have a tangible meaning for him in these last dreadful months; its very idea was dear beyond any power of his to tell. It was so beloved a thing that at first his cold logic could not take hold of it: its very thought brought a luster as of tears to his eyes and a warm glow, as in the first drifting of sleep, to his brain. He had found out what freedom meant and how unspeakably beautiful it was. In his native city, however, he had taken it as a matter of course. Because it was everywhere around him he was no more conscious of it than the air he breathed; and he felt secret scorn of much of the sentimental eloquence concerning it. It had failed to get home to him, and many of his generation had forgotten it, just as they had forgotten the Author of their lives. It was merely something that feeble old men, amusing in their earnestness and their badges of the Grand Army so proudly worn on their tattered clothes, spoke of with a curious, deep solemnity, which a scattered few of his friends, from certain hard-fighting divisions, had learned on battlefields in France; but which was of little importance in his own life. When he did think of it at all he was very likely to confuse it with license. Now and then, when heady liquor had hold of him, he had amused his friends with quite a lecture concerning freedom,—particularly in its relation to the Volstead act. But the old urge and devotion that was the life theme of hundreds of generations that had preceded him had seemed cold in his spirit.
He had learned the truth up here. He had found out it was the outer gate to all happiness; and everything else worth while was wholly dependent upon it. As he stood in this little snowy copse beside the dead wolf, even clearer vision came to him concerning it. Was it not the dream of the ages? Was not all struggle upward toward this one star,—not only economic and religious freedom, but freedom from the tyranny of the elements, from the scourge of disease, from the soiling hand of ignorance and want? And what quality made for dominance as much as love of freedom?
It was a familiar truth that no race was great without this love. Suddenly he saw that this was the first quality of greatness, whether in nations or individuals. The degree of this love was the degree of worth itself; and only the fawning weakling, the soul lost to honor and self-respect, was content to live beneath a master’s lash when there was a fighting chance for liberty!
A fighting chance! The phrase meant nothing less than the chance of death. But all through the loner roll of the centuries the bravest men had defied this chance; and they would not lift their helmets to those that eschewed it. But now he knew the truth of that stern old law of tribes and nations,—a law sometimes forgotten yet graven on the everlasting stone—that he who will not risk his life for liberty does not deserve to live it. The thing held good with him now. It held good with Bess and Lenore as well.
That was the test! It was the last, cruel trial in the Training Camp of Life.
Deeply moved and exalted, he lifted his face to the cold, blue skies as if for strength. For the instant he stood almost motionless, oblivious to his wounds and his torn clothes, a figure of unmistakable dignity in those desolate drifts. He knew what he must do. He too must stand trial, bravely and without flinching. For Ned Cornet had come into his manhood.