up there you are no longer yourself--no. You move in
a dream. Eh bien, m'sieu', there came, I thought, a dream to me one
evening--well, perhaps one afternoon, for the days are short--so short,
the sun just coming over a little bend of sky, and sinking down like a
big orange ball. I come out of a tumble of little hills, and there over
on the plains I saw a sight! Ragged hills of ice were thrown up, as if
they'd been heaved out by the breaking earth, jutting here and there
like wedges--like the teeth of a world. Alors, on one crag, shaped as an
anvil, I saw what struck me like a blow, and I felt the blood shoot out
of my heart and leave it dry. I was for a minute like a pump with no
water in its throat to work the piston and fetch the stream up. I got
sick and numb. There on that anvil of snow and ice I saw a big white
bear, one such as you shall see within the Arctic Circle, his long
nose fetching out towards that bleeding sun in the sky, his white coat
shining. But that was not the thing--there was another. At the feet of
the bear was a body, and one clawed foot was on that body--of a man.
So clear was the air, the red sun shining on the face as it was turned
towards me, that I wonder I did not at once know whose it was. You
cannot think, m'sieu', what that was like--no. But all at once I
remembered the Chant of the Scarlet Hunter. I spoke it quick, and the
blood came creeping back in here." He tapped his chest with his slight
forefinger.

"What was the chant?" asked the governor, who had scarce stirred
a muscle since the tale began. Pierre made a little gesture of
deprecation. "Ah, it is perhaps a thing of foolishness, as you may
think--"

"No, no. I have heard and seen in my day," urged the governor.

"So? Good. Yes, I remember, you told me years ago, m'sieu'....

"The blinding Trail and Night and Cold are man's: mine is the trail
that finds the Ancient Lodge. Morning and Night they travel with
me; my camp is set by the pines, its fires are burning--are burning.
The lost, they shall sit by my fires, and the fearful ones shall
seek, and the sick shall abide. I am the Hunter, the Son of the
North; I am thy lover where no man may love thee. With me thou
shalt journey, and thine the Safe Tent.

"As I said, the blood came back to my heart. I turned to my dogs, and
gave them a cut with the whip to see if I dreamed. They sat back and
snarled, and their wild red eyes, the same as mine, kept looking