A swift intuition lashed upon him,
leaving in its trail the cold chill of superstition. The persistence of
the shadow he invested with his gambler's symbolism. Silent, inexorable,
not to be shaken off, he took it as the fate which waited at the last
turn when chips were cashed in and gains and losses counted up. Fortune
La Pearle believed in those rare, illuminating moments, when the
intelligence flung from it time and space, to rise naked through eternity
and read the facts of life from the open book of chance. That this was
such a moment he had no doubt; and when he turned inland and sped across
the snow-covered tundra he was not startled because the shadow took upon
it greater definiteness and drew in closer. Oppressed with his own
impotence, he halted in the midst of the white waste and whirled about.
His right hand slipped from its mitten, and a revolver, at level,
glistened in the pale light of the stars.
"Don't shoot. I haven't a gun."
The shadow had assumed tangible shape, and at the sound of its human
voice a trepidation affected Fortune La Pearle's knees, and his stomach
was stricken with the qualms of sudden relief.
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