. In an instant the mood of that time flashed back on him
as if there had been nothing between.

All the search that had been made for Cameron in the first days of the
snow had resulted in nothing but the finding of his coarse winding-sheet
in this birch wood. Then and since, confused rumours had come that he
was wandering from village to village, but no one had been brave enough
to detain him. Trenholme knew that people on the railway line to the
south believed firmly that the old man was still alive, or that his
ghost walked. Now, as his eyes focussed more intently upon the moving
thing, it looked to him like a man.

Again he heard the sound of a voice, a man's voice certainly. It was
raised for the space of a minute in a sort of chant, not loud enough for
him to hear any word or to know what language was spoken.

"Hi!" cried Trenholme at the top of his voice. "Hi, there! What do you
want?"

There was no doubt that a man out there could have heard, yet, whatever
the creature was, it took not the slightest notice of the challenge.

As his eyes grew accustomed to the dim light he saw that the figure was
moving on the top of the deep snow near the outskirts of the
wood--moving about in an aimless way, stopping occasionally, and
starting again, raising the voice sometimes, and again going on in
silence. Trenholme could not descry any track left on the snow; all that
he could see was a large figure dressed in garments which, in the
starlight, did not seem to differ very much in hue from the snow, and he
gained the impression that the head was thrown back and the face
uplifted to the stars.

He called again, adjuring the man he saw to come at once and say why he
was there and what he wanted. No attention was paid to him; he might as
well have kept silent.

A minute or two more and he went in, shut and bolted his door, even
took the trouble to see that the door of the baggage-room was secured.
He took his lamp down from the wall where, by its tin reflector, it hung
on a nail, and set it on the table for company. He opened the damper of
the stove again, so that the logs within crackled. Then he sat down and
began to read the Shakespeare he had pushed from him before. What he had
seen and heard seemed to him very curious. No obligation rested upon
him, certainly, to go out and seek this weird-looking creature. There
was probably nothing supernatural, but--well, while a man is alone it is
wisest to shut out all that has