Ugruk waited a long time for Gretchen to overtake him. He stood peering out into the ice-filled strait, but never did he see her dim outline advance and take form in the snow-eddies. He only saw the wind cutting away his tracks, and the fine white drift filling them up and smoothing them over. Still he dared not cross back to the island where Nanook roamed. He waited until dusk, a disastrous, perhaps a fatal mistake. Fear consumed him. It was a strange fact, significant and auspicious, that now he feared for his companion more than for himself. It might be that the bear had caught and killed her. Perhaps she had lost her way, in which case the storm might make quick work of her. To be lost usually means to become panic-stricken, and to be struck with panic, in the Great Cold, means to die.
