And in this silence came once more a cry—­a cry which Jolly Roger McKay could no longer disbelieve, and close upon the cry the report of a rifle.  Again he could have sworn the voice was a woman’s voice.  As nearly as he could judge it came from dead ahead, out of the chaos of blackness, and in that direction he shouted an answer.  Then he ran out into the darkness, followed by Peter.  Another avalanche of wind gathered at their heels, driving them on like the crest of a flood.  In the first force of it Jolly Roger stumbled and fell to his knees, and in that moment he saw very faintly the glow of his light at the opening in the snow dune.  A realization of his deadly peril if he lost sight of the light flashed upon him.  Again and again he called into the night.  After that, bowing his head in the fury of the storm, he plunged on deeper into darkness.

A sudden wild thought seized upon his soul and thrilled him into forgetfulness of the light and the snow-dune and his own safety.  In the heart of this mad world he had heard a voice.  He no longer doubted it.  And the voice was a woman’s voice!  Could it be Nada?  Was it possible she had followed him after his flight, determined to find him, and share his fate?  His heart pounded.  Who else, of all the women in the world, could be following his trail across the Barrens—­a thousand miles from civilization?  He began to shout her name.  “Nada—­Nada—­Nada!” And hidden in the gloom at his side Peter barked.

Storm and darkness swallowed them.  The last faint gleam of the alcohol lamp died out.  Jolly Roger did not look back.  Blindly he stumbled ahead, counting his footsteps as he went, and shouting Nada’s name.  Twice he thought he heard a reply, and each time the will-o’-the-wisp voice seemed to be still farther ahead of him.  Then, with a fiercer blast of the wind beating upon his back, he stumbled and fell forward upon his face.  His hand reached out and touched the thing that had tripped him.  It was not snow.  His naked fingers clutched in something soft and furry.  It was a man’s coat.  He could feel buttons, a belt, and the sudden thrill of a bearded face.

He stood up.  The wind was wailing off over the Barren again, leaving an instant of stillness about him.  And he shouted: 

“Nada—­Nada—­Nada!”

An answer came so quickly that it startled him, not one voice, but two—­three—­and one of them the shrill agonized cry of a woman.  They came toward him as he continued to shout, until a few feet away he could make out a gray blur moving through the gloom.  He went to it, staggering under the weight of the man he had found in the snow.  The blur was made up of two men dragging a sledge, and behind the sledge was a third figure, moaning in the darkness.

“I found some one in the snow,” Jolly Roger shouted.  “Here he is—­ "