Surely my position was a strange one.

Her terrible affliction seemed to cause her to be entirely dependent upon me.
Suddenly, just as the yellow sunlight overhead had begun to fade, the flat-faced Finn, whose name he had told me was Felix Estlander, cried joyfully-- "_Polushaite!_ Look, Excellency! Ah! The road at last!" And as we glanced before us we saw that his quick, well-trained eyes had detected away in the twilight, at some distance, a path traversing our vista among the gray-green tree-trunks.

Then, hurrying along, we found ourselves upon a track, on which we turned to the right--a track, rough and deeply-rutted by the felled trunks that were dragged along it to the nearest river.
Elma made a gesture of renewed hope, and all three of us redoubled our pace, expecting every moment to come upon some log hut, the owner of which would surely give us hospitality for the night.

But darkness came on quickly, and yet we still pushed forward.

Poor Elma was limping, and I knew that her injured foot was paining her, even though she could tell me nothing.
At last, however, after walking for nearly four hours in the almost impenetrable forest gloom, always fearing lest we might miss the path, our hearts suddenly beat quickly by seeing before us a light shining in a window, and five minutes later Felix was knocking at the door, and asking in Finnish the occupant to give hospitality to a lady lost in the forest.
We heard a low growl like a muttered imprecation within, and when the door opened there stood upon the threshold a tall, bearded, muscular old fellow in a dirty red shirt, with a big revolver shining in his hand.