But she had failed him.

He rose to his feet with a little laugh, partly of joy and partly of
pain, as he thought of the true heart that was waiting for Pelliter.
He tied on his snow-shoes and struck out over the Barren. He moved
swiftly, looking sharply ahead of him. The night grew brighter, the
stars more brilliant. The zipp, zipp, zipp of the tails of his
snow-shoes was the only sound he heard except the first faint, hissing
monotone of the aurora in the northern skies, which came to him like
the shivering run of steel sledge runners on hard snow.

In place of sound the night about him began to fill with ghostly life.
His shadow beckoned and grimaced ahead of him, and the stunted bush
seemed to move. His eyes were alert and questing. Within himself he
reasoned that he would see nothing, and yet some unusual instinct
moved him to caution. At regular intervals he stopped to listen and to
sniff the air for an odor of smoke. More and more he became like a
beast of prey. He left the last bush behind him. Ahead of him the
starlit space was now unbroken by a single shadow. Weird whispers came
with a low wind that was gathering in the north.

Suddenly MacVeigh stopped and swung his rifle into the crook of his
arm. Something that was not the wind had come up out of the night. He
lifted his fur cap from his ears and listened. He heard it again,
faintly, the frosty singing of sledge runners. The sledge was
approaching from the open Barren, and he cleared for action. He took
off his heavy fur mittens and snapped them to his belt, replaced them
with his light service gloves, and examined his revolver to see that
the cylinder was not frozen. Then he stood silent and waited.