For some strange reason he was not frightened at the situation. He found
that even over the level spaces he could scarcely drag his snow shoes, but
this had ceased to alarm him as he had been alarmed at first. He went on,
hour after hour, weaker and weaker. Within himself there was still life
which reasoned that if death were to come it could not come in a better
way. It at least promised to be painless--even pleasant. The sharp,
stinging pains of hunger, like little electrical knives piercing him, were
gone; he no longer experienced a sensation of intense cold; he almost felt
that he could lie down in the drifted snow and sleep peacefully. He knew
what it would be--a sleep without end--with the arctic foxes to pick his
bones, and so he resisted the temptation and forced himself onward. The
storm still swept straight west from Hudson's Bay, bringing with it endless
volleys of snow, round and hard as fine shot; snow that had at first seemed
to pierce his flesh, and which swished past his feet, as if trying to trip
him, and tossed itself in windrows and mountains in his path. If he could
only find timber--shelter! That was what he worked for now. When he had
last looked at his watch it was nine o'clock in the morning; now it was
late in the afternoon. It might as well have been night.
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