e him; he's got some matches after all," he said with bitter
chagrin. Eagerly he searched all around in the snow to see if he could
not find even a crumb of food. There was nothing. He pushed on. Night
fell and he was forced to make camp.

Oh, he was hungry! The night was vastly resplendent, a spendthrift night
scattering everywhere its largess of stars. The cold had a crystalline
quality and the trees detonated strangely in the silence. He built a
huge fire: that at least he could have, and through eighteen hours of
darkness he crouched by it, afraid to sleep for fear of freezing.

"If I only had a tin to boil water in," he muttered; "there's lots of
reindeer moss, and I could stew some of my mucklucks. Ah! I'll try and
roast a bit of them."

He cut a strip from the Indian boots he was wearing, and held it over
the fire. The hair singed away and the corners crisped and charred. He
put it in his mouth. It was pleasantly warm, but even his strong teeth
refused to meet in it. However, he tore it into smaller pieces, and
bolted them.

At last the dawn came, that evil, sneaking, corpse-like dawn, and
Locasto flung himself once more on the trail. He was not feeling so fit
now. Hunger and loss of blood had weakened him so that his stride
insensibly shortened, and his step had lost its spring. However, he
plodded on doggedly, an incarnation of vengeance and hate. Again he
examined the snowshoe trail ever stretching in front, and noticed how
crisped and hard was its edge. He was not making the time he had
reckoned on. The Worm must be a long way ahead.

Still he did not despair. The little man might rest a day, or oversleep,
or strain a sinew, then-- Locasto pictured with gloating joy the
terror of the Worm as he awoke to find himself overtaken. Oh, the snake!
the vermin! On! On!

Beyond a doubt he was growing weaker. Once or twice he stumbled, and the
last time he lay a few moments before rising. He wanted to rest badly.
The cold was keener than ever; it was merciless; it was excruciating. He
no longer had the vitality to withstand it. It stabbed and stung him
whenever he exposed bare flesh. He pulled the parka hood very close, so
that only his eyes peered out. So he moved through the desolation of the
Arctic Wild, a dark, muffled figure, a demon of vengeance, fierce and
menacing.

He stood on a vast, still plateau. The sky was like a great grotto of
ice. The land lay in a wan apathy of suffering, dumb, hopeless, drear