Could he be dreaming ?--it seemed like the sound of human voices.

For a moment he stood with his eyes rivetted on the ground, his lips apart, and his nostrils distended, as he listened with the utmost intensity.

Then he darted out and bounded round the edge of a rock which concealed an extensive but narrow valley from his view, and there, to his amazement, he beheld a band of about a hundred human beings advancing on horseback slowly through the snow..