"This out of all will remain - They have lived and have tossed: So much of the game will be gain, Though the gold of the
dice has been lost." The man who followed slipped on a smooth boulder, nearly fell, but recovered himself with a violent effort, at the same time uttering a sharp exclamation of pain.The man pulled out his watch, the while resting his weight on one leg. It was four o'clock, and as the season was near the last of July or first of August, - he did not know the precise date within a week or two, - he knew that the sun roughly marked the northwest. He picked his way from muskeg to muskeg, and followed the other man's footsteps along and across the rocky ledges which thrust like islets through the sea of moss.And as the dim ball of the sun sank slowly into the northwest he covered every inch - and many times - of his and Bill's flight south before the downcoming winter.The man knew there was no nourishment in the berries, but he chewed them patiently with a hope greater than knowledge and defying experience.The animal was not mere than fifty feet away, and instantly into the man's mind leaped the vision and the savor of a caribou steak sizzling and frying over a fire.And always the ptarmigan rose, whirring, before him, till their ker - ker - ker became a mock to him, and he cursed them and cried aloud at them with their own cry.He found a hidden crevice among the stones through which it had escaped to the adjoining and larger pool - a pool which he could not empty in a night and a day.His hunger was driving him too compellingly - only - only he wondered if Bill, too, were lost. There was
life all around him, but it was strong life, very much alive and well, and he knew the sick wolf clung to the sick man's trail in the hope that the man would die first. He followed the trail of the other man who dragged himself along, and soon came to the end of it - a few fresh-picked bones where the soggy moss was marked by the foot-pads of many wolves. Once, glancing back, he saw the wolf licking hungrily his bleeding trail, and he saw sharply what his own end might be - unless - unless he could get the wolf. Then began as grim a tragedy of existence as was ever played - a sick man that crawled, a sick wolf that limped, two creatures dragging their dying carcasses across the desolation and hunting each other's lives. Five minutes later the whole weight of the man's body was on top of the wolf. The hands had not sufficient strength to choke the wolf, but the face of the man was pressed close to the throat of the wolf and the mouth of the man was full of hair.