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Updated: May 24, 2025
It was a terrible face, overgrown with beard, with wild and staring eyes; but it was a white man's face. Pelliter had expected an Eskimo, and he sprang to his feet with sudden strength as the stranger came in. "Something to eat, mate, for the love o' God give me something to eat!" The stranger fell in a heap on the floor and stared up at him with the ravenous entreaty of an animal.
It was hot and steamy in the valley, no stars were visible; the known world, muffled in a close and imponderable cloak, was without any sign of life, of motion, of variety. Gordon heard footsteps descending heavily from the road, a bulky shape loomed up before him and disclosed the features of Dr. Pelliter. He greeted Gordon awkwardly, and then fell momentarily silent.
Both Pelliter and Billy were looking when it fell for a second time. An unpleasant laugh came from MacVeigh's lips. The figure was climbing to its feet for the fifth time, and was only on its hands and knees when the sledge drew up. It was a white man. His head was bare, his face deathlike.
He had known loneliness, the heartbreak and the longing of it, in the black and silent chaos of the arctic night; he had almost gone mad of it, and he had seen Pelliter nearly die for a glimpse of the sun and the sound of a voice. But this was different. It was something that ate deeper at his soul each day and each night that he lived.
"Billy, you ain't going to hunt him up, are you? That wouldn't be fair to me or to the kid. My Jeanne 'll love her, an' mebbe mebbe some day your kid 'll come along an' marry her " MacVeigh rose to his feet. Pelliter did not see the sudden look of grief that shot into his face. "What do you say, Billy?" "Think it over, Pelly," came back Billy's voice, huskily. "Think it over.
When he returned there was a fresh redness in Pelliter's eyes, and he puffed out thick clouds of smoke from his pipe to hide his face. MacVeigh thought of that parting often in the days that followed. Pelliter stood last in the door, and in his face was a look which MacVeigh wished that he had not seen. In his own heart was the dread and the fear, the thing which he could not name.
It recalled him once more to Pelliter. In the excitement of Isobel's presence and the shock and despair that had followed her flight he had been guilty of partly forgetting Pelliter. By the time he reached the Eskimo igloos there would be two days lost. Those two days might mean everything to his sick comrade.
As the last of five shots left his Remington Billy pulled in his gun and faced across to Pelliter, who was already reloading. "Pelly, I don't want to croak," he said, "but this is the last of Law at Fullerton Point for you and me. Look at that!" He raised the muzzle of his rifle to one of the logs over his head. Pelliter could see the fresh splinters sticking out.
"She's the bravest little kid in the world," he finished; and Pelliter wondered at the strangeness of his voice. He tucked her into a nest made of blankets and then tied her in securely with babiche rope. Pelliter stood up first and saw the hungry, staring look in MacVeigh's face as he kept his eyes steadily upon Little Mystery. "What's the matter, Mac?" he asked.
But in place of these the wind was rising and the fine snow was thickening. Billy no longer turned to look behind. He stared ahead and as far as he could see on each side of them. At the end of half an hour the panting dogs dropped into a walk, and he walked close beside his comrade. "They've given it up," groaned Pelliter, weakly. "I'm glad of it, Mac, for I'm I'm dizzy."
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