The indentations were more shallow now. The point where he had begun to break through the snow crust, because of the softening snow, was passed long ago: only because he was in a valley sheltered from the wind were the tracks manifest at all.
The time came at last when he could no longer get upon his feet. And now, like a Tithonus who could not die, he crawled along the snowshoe trail on is hands and knees. "I can't go on," he told himself. "I'm through!" Yet always his muscles made one movement more.
Suddenly he missed the trail. His hand groped in vain over the white crust. He crept on a few more feet, then as ever, began to circle. Soon his hand found an indentation in the snow crust, and he started to creep forward again.
But slowly the conviction grew upon him that he was crawling in a small circle,—the very circle he had just made. Some way, he had missed the snowshoe trail. He did not remember how on his journey out he had once been obliged to backtrack a hundred yards and start on at a new angle. He had merely come to that point from which he had turned back. He could not find the trail because he was at its end.
He could not remember that it was his own trail. How he came here, his purpose and his destination, were all lost and forgotten in the intricate mazes of the past. He had but one purpose, one theme,—to keep to his trail an journey on. He would make a bigger circle. He started to creep forward in the snow.
But as he waited, on hands and knees in the drifts, the Spirit of Mercy came down to him and gave him one moment of lucid thought. All at once full consciousness returned to him in a sweep as of a tide, and he remembered all that had occurred. He saw all things in their exact relations. And now he knew his course.
No longer would he struggle on, slave to the remorseless instinct of self-preservation. Was there any glory, any happiness at his journey's end that would pay him for the agony of one more forward step? He had waged a mighty battle; but now—in a flash—he realized that the spoil for which he had fought was not worth one moment of his hours of pain. He remembered Virginia, Harold, the mind and its revelation: he recalled that his mission had been merely an expedition after provisions so that the two could go out of his life. Was there any reason why he should fight for life, only to find death?
There was nothing in the distant cabin worth having now. He was suddenly crushed with bitterness at the thought that he had made this mighty effort for a goal not worth attaining. If he struggled on, even to success, the only thing that waited him was a moment of farewell with Virginia and the vision of her slipping away from him, into her lover's arms. When she departed only the forest and the darkness would be left, and he had these here.
It would be different if he felt Virginia still needed him. If he could win her any happiness by fighting on, the struggle would still be worth while. But she had Harold to show her the way through the winter woods. It was true that they would have to rely on the fallen grizzly for meat: an uncomfortable experience, but nothing to compare with any further movement through the cruel drifts. Harold would come back and claim the mine; perhaps he would even erect his own notice before his departure, and the Rutheford family would know the full fruits of their crime of long ago. But it didn't matter. The only thing that mattered now was rest and sleep.
Slowly he sank down in the snow.