“You and Ky!” He nodded. “Ky and the dogs that were left, fighting our way over the ice-moraines in a hard, fierce light, that seemed to come from every point of the compass at once. I remember a curious optical delusion overtook me. I lost all faculty of seeing the snow-covered ice I walked on. I could feel it, of course, at every step. I could see my snow-shoes sharp as if they’d been silhouettes poised in air. But the terrible white light that bathed the universe seemed to be flooding up from under my feet as well as beating on my head. Round that white bossed shield of the frozen sea the sun moved in his shrunken circle, with no uprising and no setting, abhorring shadow. Like that, day and night, night and day.” “For how long?” “For a thousand years. A dog killed to feed the rest, and still on, ‘for miles on miles on miles of desolation—leagues on leagues on leagues, without a change.’ In a world as dead and white as leprosy.” He closed his eyes, as if the midnight glare still dazzled him. In her sleep again the dog had been moving and moaning. “Ky is in pain,” said the girl, very softly, hardly daring to whisper. The sick man opened his eyes and faintly shook his head. “Only dreaming. I do the same myself. Wake in the dark, and think the pressure has sent the ice towering above us. And while we try to get across the broken blocks, suddenly they begin to grind and growl and to writhe and thunder, as if moved to hatred of us. Ky lost a yoke-fellow in such a place, crushed between the shrieking boulders. Quiet, Ky! The exploring’s all done. At least”—he looked up—“I’d like to think—” “You may.” “Thank you,” said the sick man. “Yes, Ky,” Hildegarde spoke with a little break in her voice. “The exploring’s all done.” As if the dog had heard and comprehended, and so been delivered from evil dreams, she got up, came shakily down from the bed, and stood for a moment at the door, looking out. “What’s ahead of us, Ky?” he asked, dreamily. “An ice sky or a water sky?” “How was it you could tell?” “Oh, you learn. The field-ice reflection is the brightest, a little yellow; drift ice, purer white; new ice, gray. And where there’s open water the ‘blink’ is slatey, isn’t it, Ky? Or blue, like the skies of California.” “But the Pole?” The word brought a startled look into his face, and his eyes guarded the threshold so fiercely she sunk her voice to meet his humor. “What was it like?” she whispered. “Ky knows,” he answered, warily. “Ky got there.” With a supreme humility, or was it a high indifference on her part, the great explorer crossed the threshold and sat outside in the sun.