, 'twouldn't be a bad notion to turn in."

CHAPTER II.

HALCYONII DIES.

It is a tolerably insane amusement for a foreigner to go tramping over
wild fields and valleys in Northern Norway with no other guide than the
thing they call an ordnance map and a bit of a pocket-compass. And to
do the same without intent to slay the beasts, the birds, or the fish
of the country seems, to my way of thinking, even more mad still.
Perhaps I am peculiarly constituted, but that's the way it strikes me
personally. So I was rather curious to know what make of man it was
that did these things.

Overnight I had seen little of him that was not heavily shadowed. The
stranger preferred to do his own cooking, saying that he was used to
it, and had elected to heat his meat at the doorway of the stove.
Through this gap little radiance escaped. The only matters illuminated
were the slices of venison, the toasting-splinter, and the hands that
held it alternately. These last, being the solitary things one's eyes
could make out, naturally were glanced over more than once. They were
slightly above the medium size for hands, and long in proportion to
their breadth. The fingers were tapered like a woman's. The nails were
filbert-shaped, and grimy with recent climbing. The palms were hard.
The knuckle-side was very brown, and showed the tendons prominently.
They were those lean, nervous sort of hands which you find out at times
can grip like thumbscrews.

My couch was an uneasy one, and I awoke early. The visitor was snoring
away on the log-floor, looking comfortable and contented.

He was a man of about two-and-thirty, dark, tall, and well-built. His
clothes were those of the merchant seamen--that is, they smacked in no
degree whatever of the sea. Indeed, the only outward things which
connected him with the water were certain weather stains. He wore a
moustache cropped somewhat over close, and the teeth then showing
beneath it, though white, were chaotic; and, moreover, there was the
purple ridge of a scar running from the corner of his mouth which might
advantageously have been hidden. A beard also would have become him,
for his chin verged slightly to the cut-away type, and a three-days'
stubble looks merely unkempt. He would never have been a beauty, but
groomed up he would have made a very passable appearance amongst other
men, although the scar near his mouth, and another similar emblem of
roughness over the opposite eye, would hav