rontier of the subject--of a single detail of
the subject, rather--

"Can't you even tell me what--_they_ were like?" he asked; and the reply,
though conceived in wisdom, was not encouraging, "It is far better you
should not try to know, or to find out."

"Well--that odour...?" persisted the nephew. "What do you make of that?"

Dr. Cathcart looked at him and raised his eyebrows.

"Odours," he replied, "are not so easy as sounds and sights of telepathic
communication. I make as much, or as little, probably, as you do
yourself."

He was not quite so glib as usual with his explanations. That was all.

* * * * *

At the fall of day, cold, exhausted, famished, the party came to the
end of the long portage and dragged themselves into a camp that at
first glimpse seemed empty. Fire there was none, and no Punk came
forward to welcome them. The emotional capacity of all three was too
over-spent to recognize either surprise or annoyance; but the cry of
spontaneous affection that burst from the lips of Hank, as he rushed
ahead of them towards the fire-place, came probably as a warning that
the end of the amazing affair was not quite yet. And both Cathcart and
his nephew confessed afterwards that when they saw him kneel down in
his excitement and embrace something that reclined, gently moving,
beside the extinguished ashes, they felt in their very bones that this
"something" would prove to be Defago--the true Defago, returned.

And so, indeed, it was.

It is soon told. Exhausted to the point of emaciation, the French
Canadian--what was left of him, that is--fumbled among the ashes, trying
to make a fire. His body crouched there, the weak fingers obeying feebly
the instinctive habit of a lifetime with twigs and matches. But there
was no longer any mind to direct the simple operation. The mind had
fled beyond recall. And with it, too, had fled memory. Not only recent
events, but all previous life was a blank.

This time it was the real man, though incredibly and horribly shrunken.
On his face was no expression of any kind whatever--fear, welcome, or
recognition. He did not seem to know who it was that embraced him, or
who it was that fed, warmed and spoke to him the words of comfort and
relief. Forlorn and broken beyond all reach of human aid, the little man
did meekly as he was bidden. The "something" that had constituted him
"individual" had vanished for ever.

In some ways it was more te