A little while longer, Keith thought, and the thing would
have driven him mad. Even now he fancied he heard the screaming and
wailing of voices far up under the hidden stars. More than once in the
past months he had listened to the sobbing of little children, the
agony of weeping women, and the taunting of wind voices that were
either tormenting or crying out in a ghoulish triumph; and more than
once in those months he had seen Eskimos--born in that hell but driven
mad in the torture of its long night--rend the clothes from their
bodies and plunge naked out into the pitiless gloom and cold to die.
Conniston would never know how near the final breakdown his brain had
been in that hour when he made him a prisoner. And Keith had not told
him. The man-hunter had saved him from going mad. But Keith had kept
that secret to himself.
Even now he shrank down as a blast of wind shot out of the chaos above
and smote the cabin with a shriek that had in it a peculiarly
penetrating note. And then he squared his shoulders and laughed, and
the yapping of the foxes no longer filled him with a shuddering
torment. Beyond them he was seeing home. God's country! Green forests
and waters spattered with golden sun--things he had almost forgotten;
once more the faces of women who were white.
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