e they tried to
mislead me or desert me. My knee at times was painful, and cold, hunger,
and incessant watchfulness wore on me vastly. Yet I did not yield to
my miseries, for there entered into me then not only the spirit of
endurance, but something of that sacred pride in suffering which was the
merit of my Covenanting forefathers.

"We were four months on that bitter travel, and I do not know how it
could have been made at all, had it not been for the deer that I had
heart to eat and none to kill. The days got shorter and shorter, and we
were sometimes eighteen hours in absolute darkness. Thus you can imagine
how slowly we went. Thank God, we could sleep, hid away in our fur bags,
more often without a fire than with one,--mere mummies stretched out
on a vast coverlet of white, with the peering, unfriendly sky above us;
though it must be said that through all those many, many weeks no cloud
perched in the zenith. When there was light there was sun, and the
courage of it entered into our bones, helping to save us. You may think
I have been made feeble-minded by my sufferings, but I tell you plainly
that, in the closing days of our journey, I used to see a tall figure
walking beside me, who, whenever I would have spoken to him, laid a
warning finger on his lips; but when I would have fallen, he spoke to
me, always in the same words. You have heard of him, the Scarlet Hunter
of the Kimash Hills. It was he, the Sentinel of the North, the Lover of
the Lost. So deep did his words go into my heart that they have remained
with me to this hour."

"I saw him once in the White Valley," Pierre said in a low voice. "What
was it he said to you?"

The other drew a long breath, and a smile rested on his lips. Then,
slowly, as though liking to linger over them, he repeated the words of
the Scarlet Hunter:

"'O son of man, behold!
If thou shouldest stumble on the nameless trail,
The trail that no man rides,
Lift up thy heart,
Behold, O son of man, thou hast a helper near!

"'O son of man, take heed!
If thou shouldst fall upon the vacant plain,
The plain that no man loves,
Reach out thy hand,
Take heed, O son of man, strength shall be given thee!

"'O son of man, rejoice!
If thou art blinded even at the door,
The door of the Safe Tent,
Sing in thy heart,
Rejoice, O son of man, thy pilot leads thee home?'

"I never seemed to be alone after that--call it