At the shot, of the two shadow-wanderers, the one reeled downward
to the dark and the other reeled upward to the light, swaying
drunkenly on his scurvy-ravaged legs, shivering with nervousness
and cold, rubbing swimming eyes with shaking fingers, and staring
at the real world all about him that had returned to him with such
sickening suddenness. He shook himself together, and realized that
for long, how long he did not know, he had bedded in the arms of
Death. He spat, with definite intention, heard the spittle crackle
in the frost, and judged it must be below and far below sixty
below. In truth, that day at Fort Yukon, the spirit thermometer
registered seventy-five degrees below zero, which, since freezing-
point is thirty-two above, was equivalent to one hundred and seven
degrees of frost.

Slowly Tarwater's brain reasoned to action. Here, in the vast
alone, dwelt Death. Here had come two wounded moose. With the
clearing of the sky after the great cold came on, he had located
his bearings, and he knew that both wounded moose had trailed to
him from the east. Therefore, in the east, were men--whites or
Indians he could not tell, but at any rate men who might stand by
him in his need and help moor him to reality above the sea of dark.

He moved slowly, but he moved in reality, girding himself with
rifle, ammunition, matches, and a pack of twenty pounds of moose-
meat. Then, an Argus rejuvenated, albeit lame of both legs and
tottery, he turned his back on the perilous west and limped into
the sun-arising, re-birthing east. . . .

Days later--how many days later he was never to know--dreaming
dreams and seeing visions, cackling his old gold-chant of Forty-