Everything partook of the superlative save himself--the perfect
cessation of wind and motion, the immensity of the snow-covered
wildness, the height of the sky and the depth of the silence.
That wind-vane--if it would only move. If a thunderbolt would fall,
or the forest flare up in flame.
The rolling up of the heavens as a scroll, the crash of
Doom--anything, anything! But no, nothing moved; the Silence
crowded in, and the Fear of the North laid icy fingers on his
heart.
Once, like another Crusoe, by the edge of the river he came upon
a track--the faint tracery of a snowshoe rabbit on the delicate
snow-crust. It was a revelation.
There was life in the Northland. He would follow it, look upon
it, gloat over it.
He forgot his swollen muscles, plunging through the deep snow in
an ecstasy of anticipation. The forest swallowed him up, and the
brief midday twilight vanished; but he pursued his quest till
exhausted nature asserted itself and laid him helpless in the
snow.
There he groaned and cursed his folly, and knew the track to be
the fancy of his brain; and late that night he dragged himself
into the cabin on hands and knees, his cheeks frozen and a
strange numbness about his feet.
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