* * * * *

Looking back, now, over the days that passed before we staggered into
the Hudson Bay outpost at Gravel Cove, I am inclined to believe that
neither Dorothy nor I were clothed entirely in our proper minds--or,
if we were, our minds, no doubt, must have been in the same condition
as our clothing. I remember shooting ptarmigan, and that we ate them;
flashes of memory recall the steady downpour of rain through the
endless twilight of shaggy forests; dim days on the foggy tundra,
mud-holes from which the wild ducks rose in thousands; then the
stunted hemlocks, then the forest again. And I do not even recall the
moment when, at last, stumbling into the smooth path left by the
Graham Glacier, we crawled through the mountain-wall, out of the
unknown land, and once more into a world protected by the Lord
Almighty.

A hunting-party of Elbon Indians brought us in to the post, and
everybody was most kind--that I remember, just before going into
several weeks of unpleasant delirium mercifully mitigated with
unconsciousness.

Curiously enough, Professor Van Twiller was not very much battered,
physically, for I had carried her for days, pickaback. But the awful
experience had produced a shock which resulted in a nervous condition
that lasted so long after she returned to New York that the wealthy
and eminent specialist who attended her insisted upon taking her to
the Riviera and marrying her. I sometimes wonder--but, as I have said,
such reflections have no place in these austere pages.