But no one answered him. The girl, white-faced, kept her wide eyes on Dan. He seemed to be peering into the shadows beside the trail, as if he were watching for the gray forms that now and then glided from tree to tree. In reality, he was not looking for wolves. He was gazing down into his own soul, measuring his own spirit for the trial that lay before him. The girl, unable to step with the broken snowshoe, rested her weight on one foot and hobbled like a bird with broken wings across to him. No sight of all this terrible journey had been more dreadful in her father's eyes than this. It seemed to split open the strong heart of the man. She touched her hand to his arm. "I'm sorry, Dan," she told him. "You tried so hard--" Just one little sound broke from his throat--a strange, deep gasp that could not be suppressed. Then he caught her hand in his and kissed it,--again and again. "Do you think I care about that?" he asked her. "I only wish I could have done more--and what I have done doesn't count. Just as in my fight with Cranston, nothing counts because I didn't win. It's just fate, Snowbird. It's no one's fault, but maybe, in this world, nothing is ever any one's fault." For in the twilight of those winter woods, in the shadow of death itself, perhaps he was catching glimmerings of eternal truths that are hidden from all but the most far-seeing eyes. "And this is the end?" she asked him. She spoke very bravely. "No!" His hand tightened on hers. "No, so long as an ounce of strength remains. To fight--never to give up--may God give me spirit for it till I die." And this was no idle prayer. His eyes raised to the starry sky as he spoke. "But, son," Lennox asked him rather quietly, "what can you do? The wolves aren't going to wait a great deal longer, and we can't go on." "There's one thing more--one more trial to make," Dan answered. "I thought about it at first, but it was too long a chance to try if there was any other way. And I suppose you thought of it too." "Overtaking Cranston?" "Of course. And it sounds like a crazy dream. But listen, both of you. If we have got to die, up here in the snow--and it looks like we had--what is the thing you want done worst before we go?" Lennox's hands clasped, and he leaned forward on the sled. "Pay Cranston!" he said. "Yes!" Dan's voice rang. "Cranston's never going to be paid unless we do it. There will be no signs of incendiarism at the house, and no proofs. They'll find our bodies in the snow, and we'll just be a mystery, with no one made to pay. The evidence in my pocket will be taken by Cranston, sometime this winter. If I don't make him pay, he never will pay. And that's one reason why I'm going to try to carry out this plan I've got.