and over a
sharp stone Elma stumbled and ripped her shoe.

I looked at my watch, and found that it was already five o'clock. In an
hour it would be dark, the beginning of the long northern night. Elma,
who was weary and footsore, asked by signs to be permitted to lay down
and rest. Therefore we gathered a bed of dried leaves for her, and she
lay down, and while we watched she was soon asleep. The Finn, who
declared that he did not suffer from the cold, removed his coat and
placed it tenderly upon her shoulders.

While there was still a ray of light I watched her white refined
features as she slept, and was sorely tempted to bend and imprint a kiss
upon that soft inviting cheek. Yet I had no right to do so--no right to
take such an advantage.

The long cold night passed wearily, and the howling of the wolves caused
me to grip my revolver, yet at daybreak we arose refreshed, and
notwithstanding the terrible pangs of hunger now gnawing at our vitals,
we were prepared to renew our desperate dash for liberty.

Although I had paper, I possessed no pencil with which to write,
therefore I could only communicate by signs with the mysterious prisoner
of Kajana, the beautiful dark-eyed girl who held me irrevocably beneath
the spell of her beauty. All the little acts of homage I was able to
perform she accepted with a quiet, calm dignity, while in her deep
luminous eyes I read an unfathomable mystery.

The mist had not cleared, for it was soon after dawn when we again moved
along, hungry, chill, and yet hopeful. At a spring we obtained some
water, and then, in silent procession, pressed forward in search of the
rough track of the woodcutters.

Elma's torn shoe gave her considerable trouble, and noticing her
limping, I induced her to sit down while I took it off, hoping to be
able to mend it, but, having unlaced it, I saw that upon her stocking
was a large patch of congealed blood, where her foot itself had also
been cut. I managed to beat the nails of the shoe with a stone, so that
its sole should not be lost, and she readjusted it, allowing me to lace
it up for her and smiling the while.

Forward we trudged, ever forward, across that enormous forest where the
myriad treetrunks presented the same dismal scene everywhere, a forest
untrodden save by wild, half-savage lumbermen. Throughout that dull
gray day we marched onward, faint with hunger, yet suffering but little
pain, for the first pangs were now past, and were succeed