He measured the distance between himself and the sledge. It was, perhaps,
a dozen paces. The dogs were still standing, tangled a little in their
traces,--eight of them,--wide-chested, thin at the groins, a wolfish
horde, built for endurance and speed. On the sledge was a quarter of a
ton of his Majesty's mail. Toward this Breault began to creep slowly and
with great pain. A hand inside of him seemed crushing the fiber of his
lung, so that the blood oozed out of his mouth. When he reached the
sledge there were many red patches in the snow behind him. He opened with
considerable difficulty a small dunnage sack, and after fumbling a bit
took there-from a pencil attached to a long red string, and a soiled
envelope.
For the first time a change came upon his countenance--a ghastly smile.
And above his hissing breath, that gushed between his lips with the sound
of air pumped through the fine mesh of a colander, there rose a still
more ghastly croak of exultation and of triumph. Laboriously he wrote. A
few words, and the pencil dropped from his stiffening fingers into the
snow. Around his neck he wore a long red scarf held together by a big
brass pin, and to this pin he fastened securely the envelope.
This much done,--the mystery of his death solved for those who might some
day find him,--the ordinary man would have contented himself by yielding
up life's struggle with as little more physical difficulty as possible.
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