He cut a strip from the Indian boots he was wearing, and held it over the fire. The hair singed away and the corners crisped and charred. He put it in his mouth. It was pleasantly warm, but even his strong teeth refused to meet in it. However, he tore it into smaller pieces, and bolted them.
At last the dawn came, that evil, sneaking, corpse-like dawn, and Locasto flung himself once more on the trail. He was not feeling so fit now. Hunger and loss of blood had weakened him so that his stride insensibly shortened, and his step had lost its spring. However, he plodded on doggedly, an incarnation of vengeance and hate. Again he examined the snowshoe trail ever stretching in front, and noticed how crisped and hard was its edge. He was not making the time he had reckoned on. The Worm must be a long way ahead.
Still he did not despair. The little man might rest a day, or oversleep, or strain a sinew, then— Locasto pictured with gloating joy the terror of the Worm as he awoke to find himself overtaken. Oh, the snake! the vermin! On! On!
Beyond a doubt he was growing weaker. Once or twice he stumbled, and the last time he lay a few moments before rising. He wanted to rest badly. The cold was keener than ever; it was merciless; it was excruciating. He no longer had the vitality to withstand it. It stabbed and stung him whenever he exposed bare flesh. He pulled the parka hood very close, so that only his eyes peered out. So he moved through the desolation of the Arctic Wild, a dark, muffled figure, a demon of vengeance, fierce and menacing.
He stood on a vast, still plateau. The sky was like a great grotto of ice. The land lay in a wan apathy of suffering, dumb, hopeless, drear. Icy land and icy sky met in a trap, a trap that held him fast; and over all, vast, titanic, terrible, the Spirit of the Wild seemed to brood. It laughed at him, a laugh of derision, of mockery, of callous gloating triumph. Locasto shuddered. Then night came and he built another giant fire.
Again he bolted down some roasted muckluck. Overhead the stars glittered vindictively. They were green and blue and red, and they had spiny rays like starfish on which they danced. This night he had to make tremendous efforts to keep from sleeping. Several times he drowsed forward, and almost fell into the fire. As he crouched there his beard was singeing and his face scorched, but his back seemed as if it was cased in ice. Often he would turn and warm it at the fire, but not for long. He hated to face the terror of the silence and the dark, the shadow where waited Death. Better the crackling cheer of the spruce flame.
At dawn the sky was leaden and the cold less despotic. Stretching interminably ahead was that lonely snowshoe trail. Locasto was puzzled.
"Where in creation is the little devil going to, anyway?" he said, knitting his brows. "I figured he'd make direct for Dawson, but he's either changed his mind or got a wrong steer. By Heavens, that's it—the little varmint's lost his way."
Locasto had an Indian's unerring sense of location.
"I guess I can't afford to follow him any more," he reflected. "I've gone too far already. I'm all petered out. I'll have to let him go in the meantime. It's save yourself, Jack Locasto, while there's yet time. Me for Dawson."