a prison. And
the woman came and stood beside Trafford, and whispered, "At first--and
at the last--he was kind."

But he urged her gently from the room: "Go away," he said; "go away. We
cannot judge him. Leave me alone with him."

They buried him upon the hill-side, far from the mounds where the Mighty
Men waited for their summons to go forth and be the lords of the North
again. At night they buried him when the moon was at its full; and he
had the fragrant pines for his bed, and the warm darkness to cover him;
and though he is to those others resting there a heathen and an alien,
it may be that he sleeps peacefully.

When Trafford questioned Hester Orval more deeply of her life there,
the unearthly look quickened in her eyes, and she said: "Oh, nothing,
nothing is real here, but suffering; perhaps it is all a dream, but it
has changed me, changed me. To hear the tread of the flying herds, to
see no being save him, the Scarlet Hunter, to hear the voices calling
in the night!... Hush! There, do you not hear them? It is
midnight--listen!"

He listened, and Pierre and Shon McGann looked at each other
apprehensively, while Shon's fingers felt hurriedly along the beads of a
rosary which he did not hold. Yes, they heard it, a deep sonorous sound:
"Is the daybreak come?" "It is still the night," came the reply as of
one clear voice. And then there floated through the hills more
softly: "We sleep--we sleep!" And the sounds echoed through the
valley--"Sleep--sleep!"

Yet though these things were full of awe, the spirit of the place held
them there, and the fever of the hunter descended on them hotly. In
the morning they went forth, and rode into the White Valley where the
buffalo were feeding, and sought to steal upon them; but the shots from
their guns only awoke the hills, and none were slain. And though they
rode swiftly, the wide surf of snow was ever between them and the chase,
and their striving availed nothing. Day after day they followed that
flying column, and night after night they heard the sleepers call from
the hills. The desire of the thing wasted them, and they forgot to eat
and ceased to talk among themselves. But one day Shon McGann, muttering
aves as he rode, gained on the cattle, until once again the Scarlet
Hunter came forth from a cleft of the mountains, and drove the herd
forward with swifter feet. But the Irishman had learned the power
in this thing, and had taught Trafford, who knew not those avail