The fine snow that he inhaled with each breath stung his lungs and he tied his heavy woolen muffler across his mouth. He stumbled frequently and floundered about to regain his balance. He lost all sense of direction and fought blindly on, each bend of the river bringing him blunderingly against one or the other of its brush-grown banks.
The only thought of his benumbed brain was to make the rock ledge somewhere ahead. It grew dark, and the blackness, laden with the blinding, stinging particles, added horror to his bewilderment.
Suddenly his snowshoe struck against a hard object, and he pitched heavily forward upon his face and lay still. He realized then that he was tired.
Never in his life had he been so utterly body-weary, and the snow was soft—soft and warm—and the pelting ceased.
He thrust his arm forward into a more comfortable position and encountered a rock, and sluggishly through his benumbed faculties passed a train of associated ideas—rock, rock ledge, loup-cerviers, the boy! With a mighty effort he roused himself from the growing lethargy and staggered blindly to his feet.
He filled his lungs, tore the ice-incrusted muffler from his lips and, summoning all his strength, gave voice to the long call of the woods:
"Who-o-o-p-e-e-e!"
But the cry was cut off at his lips. The terrific force of the shifting gusts hurled the sound back into his throat so that it came to his own ears faint and far. Again and again he called, and each time the feeble effort was drowned in the dull roar of the storm.
An unreasoning rage at the futility of it overcame him and he plunged blindly ahead, unheeding, stumbling, falling, rising to his feet and staggering among the tumbled rocks at the foot of the bluff—and then almost in his ear came the sharp, quick sound of a rifle-shot and another and another, at a second apart—the distress signal of the Northland.