river he came upon a
track--the faint tracery of a snowshoe rabbit on the delicate
snow-crust. It was a revelation.

There was life in the Northland. He would follow it, look upon it,
gloat over it.

He forgot his swollen muscles, plunging through the deep snow in an
ecstasy of anticipation. The forest swallowed him up, and the brief
midday twilight vanished; but he pursued his quest till exhausted
nature asserted itself and laid him helpless in the snow.

There he groaned and cursed his folly, and knew the track to be the
fancy of his brain; and late that night he dragged himself into the
cabin on hands and knees, his cheeks frozen and a strange numbness
about his feet. Weatherbee grinned malevolently, but made no offer to
help him. He thrust needles into his toes and thawed them out by the
stove. A week later mortification set in.

But the clerk had his own troubles. The dead men came out of their
graves more frequently now, and rarely left him, waking or sleeping. He
grew to wait and dread their coming, never passing the twin cairns
without a shudder. One night they came to him in his sleep and led him
forth to an appointed task. Frightened into inarticulate horror, he
awoke between the heaps of stones and fled wildly to the cabin. But he
had lain there for some time, for his feet and cheeks were also frozen.

Sometimes he became frantic at their insistent presence, and danced
about the cabin, cutting the empty air with an axe, and smashing
everything within reach.

During these ghostly encounters, Cuthfert huddled into his blankets and
followed the madman about with a cocked revolver, ready to shoot him if
he came too near.

But, recovering from one of these spells, the clerk noticed the weapon
trained upon him.

His suspicions were aroused, and thenceforth he, too, lived in fear of
his life. They watched each other closely after that, and faced about
in startled fright whenever either passed behind the other's back. The
apprehensiveness became a mania which controlled them even in their
sleep. Through mutual fear they tacitly let the slush-lamp burn all
night, and saw to a plentiful supply of bacon-grease before retiring.
The slightest movement on the part of one was sufficient to arouse the
other, and many a still watch their gazes countered as they shook
beneath their blankets with fingers on the trigger-guards.

What with the Fear of the North, the mental strain, and the ravages of
the disease, they