rees; yet these
are at some small distance, so that the Tent has a space all about it,
and the figure of the general land is as that of an amphitheatre.

It is made of deerskin, dyed by a strange process which turned it white,
and doctored by some cunning medicine. It is like a perfect parchment,
and shows no decay. It has a centre-pole of excellent fir, and from its
peak flies a strip of snake-skin, dyed a red which never fades. For the
greater part of the year the plateau whereon the Tent stands is covered
with a sweet grass, and when the grass dies there comes a fine white
frost, ungoverned by the sun, in which the footstep sinks, as into an
unfilled honeycomb.

The land has few clouds, and no storms, save of the lightest-rain which
is as mist, and snow which is as frosty haze. The sun cherishes the
place continually, and the moon rises on it with a large rejoicing.

Yet no man dwells in the valley. It is many scores of leagues from any
habitation, from the lodges of the Indians or the posts of the Company's
people. There are few tribes that know of it, and these go not to it as
tribes, but as one man or one woman has need. Men say that beyond it,
in another amphitheatre of the hills, is the White Valley, the Place of
Peace, where the sleepers are, and the Scarlet Hunter is sentinel. Yet
who knows--since any that have been there are constrained to be silent,
or forget what they have seen?

But this valley where the Tent stands is for those who have broken the
commandment, "Thou shalt not sell thy soul." Hither they come and wait
and desire continually; and this delightful land is their punishment,
for they have no relish for goodly things, the power to enjoy going from
them when they bargained their souls away. The great peace, the noble
pasturage, the equal joy of day and night wherein is neither heat
nor cold, where life is like the haze on a harvest-field, are for
chastisement, till that by great patience and striving, some one, having
the gift of sacrifice, shall give his life to buy back that soul. For
it is in the minds of this people of the North that for every life
that comes into the world one passes out, and for every soul which is
bartered away another must be set free ere it can be redeemed.

Men and women whom life and their own sins had battered came seeking the
Tent; but they were few and they were chiefly old, for conscience cometh
mostly when man can work and wanton no more. Yet one day, when the