ay awake, too cold to sleep, beside a sulky,
greenwood fire. In the morning it was difficult to get up on their
feet, but as the light grew clearer, the prospect ahead of them seized
their attention. The hill summits were wrapped in leaden cloud, but a
valley opened up below. It was wider and deeper than any they had come
across since leaving the factory, the bottom looked unusually level,
and it ran roughly south.

They gazed at it in silence for a time; and then Harding spoke.

"I've an idea that this is the valley where Blake fell sick, and it's
going to straighten things out for us if I'm right."

"That's so," Benson agreed, "We would be sure of striking the Stony
village, and we could afterward follow the low ground right down to the
river. With the muskegs frozen solid, it ought to make an easy road."

Blake was conscious of keen satisfaction; but there was still a doubt.

"We'll know more about it after another march," he said.

No snow fell that morning, and as their packs were ominously light they
made good speed across the hill benches and down a ravine where they
scrambled among the boulders of a frozen creek. It was a gray day
without the rise in temperature that often accompanies cloudiness, and
the light was strangely dim. Rocks and pines melted into one another
at a short distance, and leaden haze obscured the lower valley. Blake
was becoming sure, however, that it was the one they had traveled up
and, dispensing with the usual noon halt, they pushed on as fast as
possible. All were anxious to set their doubts at rest, for there was
now a prospect of obtaining food and shelter in a few days; but they
recognized no landmarks, and with the approach of evening the frost
grew very keen. The haze drew in closer, and the scattered pines they
passed wailed drearily in a rising wind. The men were tired, but they
could see no suitable camping place, and they pushed on, looking for
thicker timber.

It was getting dark when a belt of trees stretched across the valley,
and they decided to stop there. Benson, leading the way, suddenly
cried out.

"What is it?" Harding asked.

Benson hesitated.

"Well," he said, "the thing doesn't seem probable, but I believe I saw
a light. Anyway, it's gone."

They stopped, gazing eagerly into the gloom. A light meant that there
were men not far off, and after the grim desolation through which they
had traveled all were conscious of a longing for human societ