Once broken in the pride of his endurance, the priest rapidly lost hold on himself, and his vitality seemed to ooze from him with the passing hours. At the second stop after Polaris had made a place for him on the sledge the son of the snows discovered that one of his legs, which seemed to be paralyzed, was frozen from foot to knee; yet Kalin did not seem to know it. At the close of a particularly trying march--their going no longer could be called a dash--Polaris made their camp at the sheltered side of one of the hummocks of rock and ice with which the land was sprinkled and all of them, dogs and humans, slumbered wearily for many hours. Polaris awoke with a strange weight at his threat. It was the ilium necklace of Kalin, in which glimmered the red stones. He held it up for an instant in wonder at its presence there and then sprang to the priest's sleeping parka. It was empty. Kalin was not in the camp! CHAPTER XX HOPE--AND A WILL Without arousing the girl, Polaris made hasty search. Some rods along the back trail, he saw a break in the snow at the side of the trail. There he found the priest lying on his back, with his face turned up to the sun and his keen-pointed dagger piercing his heart. He had stumbled thither as far as his endurance would sustain him. More joyful than ever it had seemed in life was the half smile at the lips of the dead man. That smile was the only message he had left. He had been dead for hours. Polaris drew the dagger from the dead heart that had loved him well and hurled it afar in the snow. He smoothed the dress of the priest and bore the body to the camp. Before he aroused the girl he placed the corpse again in the sleeping parka. Then he called the girl and told her that Kalin was dead, but made no mention of the way the priest had taken. "Ah, another brave heart stilled--and because of me!" she cried, and the tears came, for she had liked the priest well. As she wept, Polaris told her of the love the man had borne her. "And, lady," he said, "wherever Kalin is, he is well content, for he has aided you toward your dearest wishes and his soul asked no more than that." He dug with the blade of a spear at the foot of one of the icy monoliths, and laid the corpse of Kalin there, while the dogs, which always seemed to sense the presence of death, bayed a hoarse requiem above the grave. But neither then nor at any future time did Polaris tell the girl of the supreme sacrifice Kalin made at the last, not wishing to make her suffer more regret. On the rude grave he had made he piled a few loose fragments of rock, and turned to the task of breaking camp for the next northward lap into the wild land. * * * * *