"What's that got to do with it?" "Everything. It was her soul that writhed under that jailership----" "Yep--and her soul that told that damned lie." D'Arcy shook his head. "You tried to win by the superiority of your physical strength. Is that moral? Is it justifiable? She had no other way to fight but by subtlety and falsehood. Both ways are equally detestable. Therefore it is not for you to condemn.... Tell Lonagon ... I'm going--going...." Jim ran outside and brought in Lonagon and Shanks. Before they could reach the bed the soul of D'Arcy had flown from his pain-ridden body. Lonagon put the blanket over the dead man's face, and Shanks made strange noises in his throat. "He was a white man, though he was a gentleman," muttered Lonagon. Jim staggered to the door, dazed by the outcome of this meeting. But his mind had cooled down and the crazy desire for vengeance, now vanished, left him a more normal creature. But he felt sick and weary. The future seemed so hopeless and blank. Had he the desire to search for Angela and bring her back, his storm-wrecked body would have refused. Lonagon approached him. "So you didn't kill him?" Jim glared. "Wal, it's jest as well, for I'd hev sure killed you." "And I'd have been darned glad," growled Jim. A great nausea overtook him, and he clutched the door-post for support. Shanks looked at him, and shook his head. "Better not hit the trail to-day. You got fever." Jim shrugged his shoulders. "I'm all right. I'll be mushing back to my shack. 'Tain't far--two days' run. So long!" He went to the sled, untethered the dogs, and sent them scuttling up the ravine. But the sickness remained. His head seemed nigh to bursting and all his limbs set up a chronic aching. He vaguely realized that he was in the grip of mountain fever, which had fastened on to his abused body and was breaking him up. He had estimated his journey back to occupy two days, but he meant to do it in one. Illness on the trail meant death, and little as Life meant to him now, the natural desire to fight for it mastered the inclination to lay down and succumb to the fever and the elements. Hour after hour the sled whirled along. Once he stopped and mechanically gave the dogs a meal. He became transformed into an automaton, acting by some subliminal power that set his direction correctly and assisted to maintain his body in an upright position. Only one part of his brain functioned, and that part was memory. All the outstanding incidents of his adventurous career passed before him in perspective. He saw himself fighting and winning from the time when first he had set out with a gripsack to seek a fortune in the wide plains of the West. At the end of this remarkable chain of successes was the dismal picture of his present failure. A woman, rather than suffer subjugation at his hands, had perjured her soul in a dreadful lie.