On the one hand
stretched the barren snow-land; on the other, the frozen sea. With
neither food nor shelter, he could not run far. All they had to do was
to wait till he wandered back to the tent, as he inevitably must, when
the frost and hunger laid hold of him. But these men did not stop to
think. There was a certain taint of madness running in the veins of all
of them. Besides, blood had been spilled, and upon them was the blood-
lust, thick and hot. "Vengeance is mine," saith the Lord, and He saith
it in temperate climes where the warm sun steals away the energies of
men. But in the Northland they have discovered that prayer is only
efficacious when backed by muscle, and they are accustomed to doing
things for themselves. God is everywhere, they have heard, but he flings
a shadow over the land for half the year that they may not find him; so
they grope in darkness, and it is not to be wondered that they often
doubt, and deem the Decalogue out of gear.
Jan ran blindly, reckoning not of the way of his feet, for he was
mastered by the verb "to live." To live! To exist! Buck flashed gray
through the air, but missed.
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