Neither spoke, nor cared to
speak, so wonderful was it all. At their feet, under the great vault of
heaven, a speck in the midst of the white vastness, huddled the golden
city--puny and sordid, feebly protesting against immensity, man's
challenge to the infinite!
Calls of men and cries of encouragement came sharply to them from close
at hand, and they halted. There was an eager yelping, a scratching of
feet, and a string of ice-rimed wolf-dogs, with hot-lolling tongues and
dripping jaws, pulled up the slope and turned into the path ahead of
them. On the sled, a long and narrow box of rough-sawed spruce told the
nature of the freight. Two dog-drivers, a woman walking blindly, and a
black-robed priest, made up the funeral cortege. A few paces farther on
the dogs were again put against the steep, and with whine and shout and
clatter the unheeding clay was hauled on and upward to its ice-hewn
hillside chamber.
"A zone-conqueror," Frona broke voice.
Corliss found his thought following hers, and answered, "These battlers
of frost and fighters of hunger! I can understand how the dominant races
have come down out of the north to empire. Strong to venture, strong to
endure, with infinite faith and infinite patience, is it to be wondered
at?"
Frona glanced at him in eloquent silence.
"'_We smote with our swords_,'" he chanted; "'_to me it was a joy like
having my bright bride by me on the couch.
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