Suddenly Brent realized that he was absolutely in this man's power. For the first time in his life he felt utterly helpless. The rage gave place to a nameless fear: "How far is it to Fort Norman?" he asked, in an unsteady voice.
"'Bout fi' hondre mile."
"Five hundred miles! I can't stand the trip, I tell you. I'm in no condition to stand it. I'll die!"
The Indian shrugged—a shrug that conveyed to Brent more plainly than words that Joe Pete conceded the point, and that if it so happened, his demise would be merely an incident upon the trail to Fort Norman. Brent realized the futility of argument. As well argue with one of the eternal peaks that flung skyward in the distance. For he, at least, knew Joe Pete. In the enthusiasm of his great plan for self redemption he had provided against this very contingency. He had deliberately chosen as his companion and guide the one man in all the North
who, come what may, would deviate no hair's breadth from his first instructions. And now, he stood there in the snow and cursed himself for a fool. The Indian pointed to the tail-rope, and muttering curses, Brent reached down and picked it up, and the outfit started.
So far they had fairly good going. The course lay up Indian River, beyond the head reaches of which they would cross the Bonnet Plume pass, and upon the east slope of the divide, pick up one of the branches of the Gravel and follow that river to the Mackenzie. Joe Pete traveled ahead, breaking trail for the dogs, and before they had gone a mile Brent was puffing and blowing in his effort to keep up. His grip tightened on the tail-rope. The dogs were fairly pulling him along. At each step it was becoming more and more difficult to lift his feet. He stumbled and fell, dragged for a moment, and let go. He lay with his face in the snow. He did not try to rise. The snow felt good to his throbbing temples. He hoped the Indian would not miss him for a long, long time. Better lie here and freeze than endure the hell of that long snow trail. Then Joe Pete was lifting him from the snow and carrying him to the sled. He struggled feebly, and futilely he cursed, but the effort redoubled the ache in his head, and a terrible nausea seized him, from which he emerged weak and unprotesting while the Indian bound him upon the load.
At dark they camped. Brent sitting humped up
beside the fire while Joe Pete set up the little tent and cooked supper. Brent drank scalding tea in gulps. Again he begged in vain for hooch—and was offered pilot bread and moose meat. He tried a piece of meat but his tortured stomach rejected it, whereupon Joe Pete brewed stronger tea, black, and bitter as gall, and with that Brent drenched his stomach and assuaged after a fashion his gnawing thirst. Wrapped in blankets he crept beneath his rabbit robe—but not to sleep. The Indian had built up the fire and thrown the tent open to its heat. For an hour Brent tossed about, bathed in cold sweat. Things crawled upon the walls of the tent, mingling with the shadows of the dancing firelight. He closed his eyes, and buried his head in his blankets, but the things were there too—twisting, writhing things, fantastic and horrible in color, and form, and unutterably loathsome in substance. And beyond the walls of the tent—out in the night—were the voices—the voices that taunted and tormented. He threw back his robe, and crawled to the fireside, where he sat wrapped in blankets. He threw on more wood from the pile the Indian had placed ready to hand, so that the circle of the firelight broadened, and showers of red sparks shot upward to mingle with the yellow stars.
But, it was of no use. The crawling, loathsome shapes writhed and twisted from the very flames—laughed and danced in the lap and the lick of the
red flames of fire. Brent cowered against his treetrunk and stared, his red-rimmed eyes stretched wide with horror, while his blood seemed to freeze, and his heart turned to water within him. From the fire, from beyond the fire, and from the blackness of the forest behind him crept a thing—shapeless, and formless, it was, of a substance vicious and slimy. It was of no color, but an unwholesome luminosity radiated from its changing outlines—an all encompassing ever approaching thing of horror, it drew gradually nearer and nearer, engulfing him—smothering him. He could reach out now and touch it with his hands. His fingers sank deep in its slime and—with a wild shriek, Brent leaped from his blankets, and ran barefooted into the forest. Joe Pete found him a few minutes later, lying in the snow with a rapidly swelling blue lump on his forehead where he had crashed against a tree in his headlong flight. He picked him up and carried him to the tent where he wrapped him in his blankets and thrust him under the robe with a compress of snow on his head.