The eyes, soft with appeal; the red mouth, quivering, and with lips parted as if about to speak to him; the head as he had looked down on it with its glory of shining hair--all had burned themselves on his soul in a picture too deep to be eradicated.

If the wilderness was interesting to him before it was doubly so now because that face was a part of it, because the secret of its life, of the misery that it had half confessed to him, was hidden somewhere out in the black mystery of the spruce and balsam forests.
He went to bed, but it was a long time before he fell asleep.

It seemed to him that he had scarcely closed his eyes when a pounding on the door aroused him and he awoke to find the early light of dawn creeping through the narrow window of his room.

A few minutes later he joined Gregson, who was ready for breakfast.
"The sledge and dogs are waiting," he greeted.

As they seated themselves at the table he added, "I've changed my mind since last night, Howland.
I'm not going back with you.