like cursing himself for his
shortsightedness.

In spite of the fact that he had missed his main chance he began now to
see more than hope in a situation that five minutes before had been one
of appalling gloom. If he could keep ahead of his enemies until
daybreak he had a ninety percent chance of getting Blake. At some spot
where he could keep the Kogmollocks at bay and scatter death among them
if they attacked he would barricade himself and Celie behind the sledge
and call out his acceptance of Blake's proposition to give up Celie as
the price of his own safety. He would demand an interview with Blake,
and it was then that his opportunity would come.

But ahead of him were the leaden hours of the gray night! Out of that
ghostly mist of pale moonlight through which the dogs were traveling
like sinuous shadows Upi and his tribe could close in on him silently
and swiftly, unseen until they were within striking distance. In that
event all would be lost. He urged the dogs on, calling them by the
names which he had heard Blake use, and occasionally he sent the long
lash of his whip curling over their backs. The surface of the
Coppermine was smooth and hard. Now and then they came to stretches of
glare ice and at these intervals Philip rode behind Celie, staring back
into the white mystery of the night out of which they had come. It was
so still that the click, dick, click of the dogs' claws sounded like
the swift beat of tiny castanets on the ice. He could hear the panting
breath of the beasts. The whalebone runners of the sledge creaked with
the shrill protest of steel traveling over frozen snow. Beyond these
sounds there were no others, with, the exception of his own breath and
the beating of his own heart. Mile after mile of the Coppermine dropped
behind them. The last tree and the last fringe of bushes disappeared,
and to the east, the north, and the west there was no break in the vast
emptiness of the great Arctic plain. Ever afterward the memory of that
night seemed like a grotesque and horrible dream to him. Looking back,
he could remember how the moon sank out of the sky and utter darkness
closed them in and how through that darkness he urged on the tired
dogs, tugging with them at the lead-trace, and stopping now and then in
his own exhaustion to put his arms about Celie and repeat over and over
again that everything was all right.

After an eternity the dawn came. What there was to be of day followed
swiftly, l