To Jim the world became a sea of maddening forces which
buffeted him; a whirlpool of fire in which his brain was tortured, his
mind was shrivelled up; a vast army rending itself, each man against the
other. It was a purgatory of music, broken by discords; and then at
last--how sweet it all was, after the eternity of misery--"Church bells
and voices low," and Sally singing to him, Nancy's voice calling! Then,
nothing but sleep--sleep, a sinking down millions of miles in an ether of
drowsiness which thrilled him; and after--no more.
None who has suffered up to the limit of what the human body and soul
may bear can remember the history of those distracted moments when the
struggle became one between the forces in nature and the forces in man,
between agonised body and smothered mind, yet with the divine
intelligence of the created being directing, even though subconsciously,
the fight.
How Arrowhead found the post in the mad storm he could never have told.
Yet he found it, with Jim unconscious on the sledge and with limbs
frozen, all the dogs gone but two, the leathers over the Indian's
shoulders as he fell against the gate of the post with a shrill cry that
roused the factor and his people within, together with Sergeant Sewell,
who had been sent out from headquarters to await Jim's arrival there.
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