Luckily he had been careful to sling the guns tightly at his back.
He picked himself up, and unstrapping one, took a step into the bright
moon-light to examine the nipples; took two steps: and stood
stock-still.

There, before him, on the frozen coat of snow, was a footprint.
No: two, three, four--many footprints: prints of a naked human foot:
right foot, left foot, both naked, and blood in each print--a little
smear.

It had come, then. He was mad for certain. He saw them: he put his
fingers in them; touched the frozen blood. The snow before the door was
trodden thick with them--some going, some returning.

"The latch . . . lifted . . ." Suddenly he recalled the figure he had
seen moving upon the hummock, and with a groan he set his face northward
and gave chase. Oh, he was mad for certain! He ran like a madman--
floundering, slipping, plunging in his clumsy moccasins. "Take us the
foxes, the little foxes . . . My beloved put in his hand by the hole of
the door, and my bowels were moved for him . . . I charge you, O
daughters of Jerusalem . . . I charge you . . . I charge you . . ."

He ran thus for three hundred yards maybe, and then stopped as suddenly
as he had started.

His mates--they must not see these footprints, or they would go mad too:
mad as he. No, he must cover them up, all within sight of the hut.
And to-morrow he would come alone, and cover those farther afield.
Slowly he retraced his steps. The footprints--those which pointed
towards the hut and those which pointed away from it--lay close