he brush, and
the darkness, and the things you are afraid to fear. The wise man
stops when he knows he's lost his bearings; he busies himself
collecting wood for a fire, if not to keep the chill from his body by
exercise, then because it keeps his mind off himself. And he sleeps if
he can. Anyhow he lies quiet and rests. And when morning comes he
uses his reason better for having rested, if his instincts still play
him false. He has a look at the stars before daybreak; he watches the
sun come up, and he holds a straight line by the height of land, or by
the river flow, and he hits familiar country soon."

This time the girl did not interrupt him. She was watching his face.

"And that doesn't apply just to one little corner of the woods, or one
little corner of life, either, does it?" he mused. "When a man's
instinct fails him, he can stop and get his bearings back; when he's
afraid he can kindle a fire within him, always, if he'll only rustle
around before it gets too dark to search for fuel. But at that it
isn't so very easy, in life, to get one's bearings straight again.
It's stormy, some nights, maybe, and the stars don't shine; sometimes
day dawns cloudy and the sun is not advertising its location too
strongly. Instinct has always been strong in me, but there have been
times, too, when I have had to hold my eyes mighty steady on some
object far beyond me, to keep my line dead straight." He stopped short
and faced her. "You would be afraid, yes," he told her, "but you would
try hard to discipline yourself. You would never go rushing blindly
into a worse tangle, spending your strength and breaking your sanity
down. Big Louie is a child; discipline is wasted on him. And--and I
have always been able to find my way myself."

She knew now toward what point he had been talking. Mentally he had
been wandering, as Big Louie once wandered in the flesh, in a wide
circle that fetched up again against that doubt in himself which was
hurting her, even while it was making her happy. He had taken the
example of Big Louie and applied it to his own life, and suddenly the
girl realized how infinitely greater was his philosophy thereof than
was hers.

"I shall try to remember that," she answered soberly. "If ever I am
lost I--I shall try to wait confidently for daylight, and keep my eyes
to the fore."

She was near to tears when he stooped and knelt in the snow to tighten
a thong slipping from one webbed foot. B