It was not much. Long before noon his old weakness was upon
him again. He found even greater difficulty in dragging his feet over the
snow, and it seemed now as though all ambition had left him, and that even
the fighting spark was becoming disheartened. He made up his mind to go on
until the arctic gloom of night began mingling with the storm; then he
would stop, build a fire, and go to sleep in its warmth. He would never
wake up, and there would be no sensation of discomfort in his dying.
During the afternoon he passed out of the scrub into a rougher country. His
progress was slower, but more comfortable, for at times he found himself
protected from the wind. A gloom darker and more sombre than that of the
storm was falling about him when he came to what appeared to be the end of
the Barren. The earth dropped away from under his feet, and far below him,
in a ravine shut out from wind and storm, he saw the black tops of thick
spruce. What life was left in him leaped joyously, and he began to scramble
downward. His eyes were no longer fit to judge distance or chance, and he
slipped. He slipped a dozen times in the first five minutes, and then there
came the time when he did not make a recovery, but plunged down the side of
the mountain like a rock. He stopped with a terrific jar, and for the first
time during the fall he wanted to cry out with pain.
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