He dared not break that strange silence in the tent.

He lay still for a long time, tired and lame from the day's journey, but sleepless.

The fire burned lower; the wind in the tree-tops died away; and the thick gray clouds rolled like a massive curtain from under the skies.

The stars began to glow white and metallic, and from far in the North there came faintly a crisping moaning sound, like steel sleigh-runners running over frosty snow--the mysterious monotone of the Northern Lights.

After that it grew steadily and swiftly colder.
To-night Gray Wolf did not compass herself by the direction of the wind.
She followed like a sneaking shadow over the trail Pierre Radisson had made, and when Kazan heard her again, long after midnight, he lay with, his head erect, and his body rigid, save for a curious twitching of his muscles.