The young miner was now alone; utterly and entirely alone. Above and around him shone the blood-red light from the heavens; at his feet the body of his only friend—dead.
Gibbs fainted.
The magnificent electrical hurricane of the night before had passed over, leaving behind one faithful sentinel—the moon. Lovingly and brightly her beams were shed over the wilderness of snow whose purity was marred by only two dark blots—the bodies of two men lying dead upon their faces. The first died by the hand of the other. The second by freezing. Both were suddenly called to that judgment so horribly feared by the older man, who saw in the unusual display of the aurora polaris the realization of his worst imaginings.
So these two men fell; while the influence of their evil deeds continue like the ripples on a lake surrounding a sinking stone; perhaps forever.
"For I hold it true that thoughts are things
Endowed with body, breath and wings,
And that we send them forth to fill
The world with good results or ill."
