So he crushed back the whispering voice, beat it down
with his hands clenched at his side, fought it through the hours of
that night with the desperation of one who fights for a thing greater
than life.
Toward dawn the stars began to fade out of the sky. He had been
tireless, and he was tireless now. He felt no exhaustion. Through the
gray gloom that came before day he went on, and the first glow of sun
found him still traveling. Prince Albert and the Saskatchewan were
thirty miles to the south and east of him.
He stopped at last on the edge of a little lake and unburdened himself
of his pack for the first time. He was glad that the premonition of
just such a sudden flight as this had urged him to fill his emergency
grub-sack yesterday morning. "Won't do any harm for us to be prepared,"
he had laughed jokingly to Mary Josephine, and Mary Josephine herself
had made him double the portion of bacon because she was fond of it. It
was hard for him to slice that bacon without a lump rising in his
throat. Pork and love! He wanted to laugh, and he wanted to cry, and
between the two it was a queer, half-choked sound that came to his
lips. He ate a good breakfast, rested for a couple of hours, and went
on.
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