a turning of the shaggy head--in such a man slight tokens are
significant. The silence deepened with the shadows drawing about
the single lamp, while Virginia attempted to maintain a breathing
advantage above the flood of strange emotions which the personality
of this man had swept down upon her.

"It does not seem--" objected the girl in bewilderment, "I do not
know--men are often out in this country for years at a time. Long
journeys are not unknown among us, We are used to undertaking them."

"But not _la Longue Traverse_," insisted the young man, sombrely.

"_La Longue Traverse_." she repeated in sweet perplexity.

"Sometimes called the Journey of Death," he explained.

She turned to look him in the eyes, a vague expression of puzzled
fear on her face.

"She has never heard of it," said Ned Trent to himself, and aloud:
"Men who undertake it leave comfort behind. They embrace hunger
and weariness, cold and disease. At the last they embrace death,
and are glad of his coming."

Something in his tone compelled belief; something in his face told
her that he was a man by whom the inevitable hardships of winter
and summer travel, fearful as they are, would be lightly endured.
She shuddered.

"This dreadful thing is necessary?" she asked.