The night was providentially dark. No aurora threw its splendor across
the dome, and only a few rare stars peeped between the light cirrus
clouds. Virginia left behind her the buildings of the Post, she passed
in safety the tin-steepled chapel and the church house; there remained
only the Indian camp between her and the woods trail. At once the dogs
began to bark and howl, the fierce _giddés_ lifting their pointed
noses to the sky. The girl hurried on, swinging far to the right
through the grass. To her relief the camp did not respond to the
summons. An old crone or so appeared in the flap of a teepee, eyes
dazzled, to throw uselessly a billet of wood or a volley of Cree abuse
at the animals nearest. In a moment Virginia entered the trail.

Here was no light at all. She had to proceed warily, feeling with her
moccasins for the beaten pathway, to which she returned with infinite
caution whenever she trod on grass or leaves. Though her sight was
dulled, her hearing was not. A thousand scurrying noises swirled about
her; a multitude of squeaks, whistles, snorts, and whines attested
that she disturbed the forest creatures at their varied businesses;
and underneath spoke an apparent dozen of terrifying voices which were
in reality only the winds and the trees. Virginia knew that these
things were not dangerous--that daylight would show them to be only
deer-mice, hares, weasels, bats, and owls--nevertheless, they had
their effect. For about her was cloying velvet blackness--not the
closed-in blackness of a room, where one feels the embrace of the four
walls, but the blackness of infinite space through which sweep
mysterious currents of air. After a long time she turned sharp to the
left. After a long time more she perceived a faint, opalescent glimmer
in the distance ahead. This she knew to be the river.

She felt her way onward, still cautiously; then she choked back a