He heard a snuffle behind him - a half-choking gasp or cough. Very
slowly, because of his exceeding weakness and stiffness, he rolled
over on his other side. He could see nothing near at hand, but he
waited patiently. Again came the snuffle and cough, and outlined
between two jagged rocks not a score of feet away he made out the
gray head of a wolf. The sharp ears were not pricked so sharply as
he had seen them on other wolves; the eyes were bleared and
bloodshot, the head seemed to droop limply and forlornly. The
animal blinked continually in the sunshine. It seemed sick. As he
looked it snuffled and coughed again.
This, at least, was real, he thought, and turned on the other side
so that he might see the reality of the world which had been veiled
from him before by the vision. But the sea still shone in the
distance and the ship was plainly discernible. Was it reality,
after all? He closed his eyes for a long while and thought, and
then it came to him. He had been making north by east, away from
the Dease Divide and into the Coppermine Valley.
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