A remembrance of that white, crumpled form lying in the glade assailed me poignantly, and starting beneath it as under the touch of white-hot iron, I shouted a frightful curse, and threw myself at the acclivity. I must reach there when he did. I must top the crest at the same time, so that he would have no chance to make a descent on the other side. For a while I ran, though the task was Herculean, goaded as I was into temporary madness by the stinging thought of my lost love. So it was I came within my own length of the climbing demoniac, who never yet had cast a glance behind him, and who even now, though he must have heard my progress, went directly on, without a sign. It was gruesome. In the midst of the inferno wherein my soul burned I recognized the uncanny strangeness of the scene. Night. A wilderness. A towering gray-white peak of earth, and on its slope two crawling specks, one bent on--God knows what!--the other intent on revenge. The law of Moses reigned supreme in my mind that night: forgotten was the law of Christ. Forgotten, or ignored. I knew no law. I was reduced to that simple plane where I was going to claim a life--a base and worthless life in exchange for the pure and priceless one he had taken. The united logic of all the united churches in Christendom or out could not have convinced me that I was wrong. We reached the last ascent, almost perpendicular, and here I expected the smith to hesitate, or halt. He did neither. He put himself at it immediately, and I imitated him. His going here was swifter than mine. It must have been because of his bare feet, which allowed him to grasp, cling and thrust with his sinewy toes. As we slowly neared the top he had drawn away from me for an appreciable distance. I increased my efforts. If I lost him now I probably never would see him again. I saw his huge arms, looking like moss-draped limbs, shoot up, and his fingers grip the top of the peak. I shut my teeth and my eyes and put out all there was in me. Now I was up, and yonder--yonder was Buck, crouched just across from me at the further rim, preparing evidently to descend, for one leg was over the rather abrupt edge. I could not reach him; he would slip down and be gone before I could make the passage, brief though it was. My hand rested upon a small stone. Impelled by impulse more than by reason, I threw the stone at him. It struck him a smarting blow on one arm, and he turned with a snarl, half squatting, half sitting.