n front of him while
crouching low he looked down for a spot on which to set his foot each
time he moved. It would, he knew, be useless to go any further if a
stone turned over now. None did, however, and he crept, strung up to
highest tension, into the deeper gloom behind the rock.

A little pool ran in close beneath the latter from the river, but it
was covered with ice and slushy snow, and treading very cautiously he
crept across it, and held his breath as he moved out from behind the
stone. Then he stopped suddenly, for a man stood face to face with him
scarcely a stone's throw away. His fur-clad figure cut sharply against
a gleaming bank of snow, and he held a gun in his hand. Though the
light had almost gone, it was evident to Wyllard that he was a white
man.

They stood very still for several seconds gazing at one another, and
then the stranger dropped the butt of his weapon and called out
sharply. Wyllard, who failed to understand him, did not move, and he
spoke again. What he said was still unintelligible, but Wyllard, who
had fallen in with a few Germans from Minnesota on the prairie, fancied
that he recognised the language. He made a sign that it was still
beyond his comprehension, and the stranger tried again. This time it
was French he spoke.

"You can come forward, comrade," he said.

He did not seem to be hostile, and Wyllard, who tossed his rifle into
the hollow of his left arm, moved out to meet him a pace or two.

"You are Russian?" he said, in the language the other had used, for
French of a kind is freely spoken in parts of Canada.

The man laughed. "That afterwards," he answered. "It is said so. My
name is Overweg--Albrecht Overweg. As to you, it appears you do not
understand Russian."

Wyllard drew a little nearer, and sat down upon a boulder. Now the
tension had somewhat slackened his weariness had once more become
almost insupportable, and he felt that he might need his strength and
senses. In the meanwhile he was somewhat bewildered by the encounter,
for it was certainly astonishing to fall in with a man who spoke three
civilised languages and wore spectacles in that desolate wilderness.

"No," he said, "it is almost the first time I have heard it."

"Ah," said the other, "there is a certain significance in that
admission, my friend. It is permissible to inquire where you have come
from, and what you are doing here?"

Wyllard, who had no desire to give him any informa