On and on he went, cursing the dogs, and lashing them till the blood oozed through their fur. Over ridges and across drifts, down gullies and through ice ravines, following Jules’s broad trail, like a bloodhound he flew, now and again getting a glimpse of his man ahead. Sometimes Jules slowed up and breathed his dogs, and Manou’s eyes would snap when he saw him so close at hand; again Jules would put on an extra burst of speed, and Manou would curse horribly as he appreciated that the distance between them had increased.
The arctic day began to wane; the sun was pale and orange-coloured as it sank toward the snow-bound horizon. Jules sped on through the long twilight; finally he stopped. “Now, Ah goin’ feenesh you, diable! Ah, Jules Verbaux, goin’ do eet!”
He took off the dogs’ harness and lashed the biggest of the team firmly about the body with the broad back-thongs; this done, he fastened the light sledge strongly on his back, and then slung the wriggling, snarling animal between the runners; he took off his snow-shoes and hung them over his shoulder, and then pounded the remaining two dogs into a semblance of docility and picked one up under each arm. “Viens donc, Manou! Ah see you to-mor’, mabbe.” Shod only in his light moccasins, he turned to the left and disappeared like a shadow, leaving not the slightest track on the hard crust.
Manou came to the end of Jules’s trail; it was almost dark, but he got down on his hands and knees, and, with his face close to the snow, searched for the continuation of it. Finally he stood up.
“Night—dam’!—she protec’ you, Jules Verbaux; but to-mor’ Ah fin’ ze track, an’ den Ah come!” And he cursed again.
His dogs were nearly finished; they stood with drooping heads and half-closed eyes before the sledge, their hollow sides working like bellows as they panted hoarsely. Manou kicked and dragged them into a semicircle, then he turned the sledge sidewise for a windbreak, and pulling out a blanket, curled up among the tired brutes. He was too frenzied by disappointment to eat anything, nor did he give the dogs any food. The sleep of utter exhaustion soon stopped his mutterings, and the huskies lay inert about him.
The stars twinkled and blinked in the dark-blue heavens; the wind had died away; everything was still. Manou slept, and the dogs did not move. The stars suddenly seemed to lose their lustre; a little breeze sprang up, eddied about, and sank again. Another came—this time a stronger one; it ruffled the bushy tails of the huskies; it stirred the fur on the blanket; then it, too, sank. The stars seemed to recede into the farthest heavens, grow dim there, and disappear. The breeze grew into a steady wind, the snow particles rustled again on the crust, and still neither the man nor the dogs moved.
The wind strengthened into a strong blow, and the particles began to huddle about the sleeping forms, covering them with a thin white sheet. One of the huskies lifted its head, sniffed a moment, and then whined—a long-drawn whine. Manou slept on. The blow increased to a gale, droning over the sharp ice-edges on the hills; the drift came fast and thick, threatening to cover man and dogs completely. Another husky awoke, sprang to its feet, and howled dismally; Manou stirred, cursed the brute, and went to sleep again. The gale grew into the awful Northern hurricane; it shrieked through the ravines, and hissed away among the sharp peaks; it grew wilder and stronger, and, dragging the fur blanket from the sleeping man, drew it to itself and carried it over the snow hills out of sight. The dogs were huddled in a solid mass, yelping and howling. Manou felt the cold and heard the raging of the wind. “Dieu! la tempête du Nord!” he cried in terror, and groped for the blanket; and, when he could not find it, began to sob and to scream curses at God and the storm.
He rose to his feet; the wind upset him; he rose again, and again the gale threw him. Then he started on his hands and knees to find the blanket. He crawled up the slope of the hill near by, thinking that it would have lodged on the side, but it was not there. He crawled farther on to the top. Here the wind was doubly strong; it seemed to shriek: “I got the blanket out of the valley! I have you here!” It buffeted and beat him along ahead of it, turning him over and over, Manou fighting and cursing all the way. He could not get back to the dogs; he dug his fingers into the crust until the blood ran and their ends were split. In vain! Inch by inch, foot by foot, yard by yard, the wind pushed and hurtled him along. The frightful cold ate into his heart, his liver, the nerve-centres of his spine; he gave up fighting, and the wind rolled his body to a little precipice. He fell over its edge, down, down, until, with a soft thud, he struck a deep drift, and sank in. The white mass closed over his body like water, and filled his nose and his ears, choking him into insensibility.
Overhead the storm raged on for hours, until finally it sank as gradually as it had come, the gale dying to a strong blow, the strong blow into a steady wind, the steady wind into a breeze, and the breeze into little drafts that also died away. The sun rose from the snow-haze, and marvelled not; it was used to these things—used to going down at night, and, on rising the next morning, to seeing the barrens changed, a hill here where it was flat yesterday, a ravine there where yesterday stood a hill.