Wherefore I looked about me; saw the
fly and, underneath, the pine boughs spread for the sleeping furs;
saw the grub sacks, the camera, the frosty breaths of the dogs
circling on the edge of the light; and, above, a great streamer of
the aurora, bridging the zenith from south-east to north-west. I
shivered. There is a magic in the Northland night, that steals in
on one like fevers from malarial marshes. You are clutched and
downed before you are aware. Then I looked to the snowshoes, lying
prone and crossed where he had flung them. Also I had an eye to my
tobacco pouch. Half, at least, of its goodly store had vamosed.
That settled it. Fancy had not tricked me after all.
Crazed with suffering, I thought, looking steadfastly at the man--
one of those wild stampeders, strayed far from his bearings and
wandering like a lost soul through great vastnesses and unknown
deeps. Oh, well, let his moods slip on, until, mayhap, he gathers
his tangled wits together. Who knows?--the mere sound of a fellow-
creature's voice may bring all straight again.
So I led him on in talk, and soon I marvelled, for he talked of
game and the ways thereof. He had killed the Siberian wolf of
westernmost Alaska, and the chamois in the secret Rockies.
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