The thought staggered him.  Could there be joy in that—­in a mere existence without the thousand pleasures and luxuries and excitements that he had known?  He drank deeply of the keen air as he asked himself the question.  His eyes rested on the shaggy, undulating backs of the big huskies; he noted their half-open jaws, the sharp alertness of their pointed ears, the almost joyous unction with which they entered into their task, their eagerness to keep their load close upon the heels of their masters.  He heard Mukoki’s short, sharp, and unnecessary commands, his hi-yi’s and his ki-yi’s, as though he were crying out for no other reason than from sheer physical exuberance.  He saw Father Roland’s face turned backward for a moment, and it was smiling.  They were happy—­now!  Men and beasts were happy.  And he could see no reason for their happiness except that their blood was pounding through their veins, even as it was pounding through his own.  That was it—­the blood.  The heart.  The lungs.  The brain.  All were clear—­clear and unfettered in that marvellous air and sunlight, washed clean by the swift pulse of life.  It was a wonderful world!  A glorious world!  He was almost on the point of crying aloud his discovery.

The thrill grew in him as he found time now to look about.  Under him the broad, steel runners of the sledge made a cold, creaking sound as they slipped over the snow that lay on the ice of the lake; he heard the swift tap, tap, tap of the dogs’ feet, their panting breath that was almost like laughter, low throat whines, and the steady swish of the snow shoes ahead.  Beyond those sounds a vast silence encompassed him.  He looked out into it, east and west to the dark rims of forest, north and south over the distance of that diamond-sprinkled tundra of unbroken white.  He drew out his pipe, loaded it with tobacco, and began to smoke.  The bitterness of the weed was gone.  It was delicious.  He puffed luxuriously.  And then, suddenly, as he looked at the purplish bulwarks of the forest, his mind swept back.  For the first time since that night many months ago he thought of the Woman—­the Golden Goddess—­without a red-hot fire in his brain.  He thought of her coolly.  This new world was already giving back to him a power of analysis, a perspective, a healthier conception of truths and measurements.  What a horrible blot they had made in his life—­that man and that woman!  What a foul trick they had played him!  What filth they had wallowed in!  And he—­he had thought her the most beautiful creature in the world, an angel, a thing to be worshipped.  He laughed, almost without sound, his teeth biting hard on the stem of his pipe.  And the world he was looking upon laughed; the snow diamonds, lying thickly as dust, laughed; there was laughter in the sun, the warmth of chuckling humour in those glowing walls of forest, laughter in the blue sky above.

His hands gripped hard.