brief midday twilight vanished; but he pursued his quest till
exhausted nature asserted itself and laid him helpless in the
snow.

There he groaned and cursed his folly, and knew the track to be
the fancy of his brain; and late that night he dragged himself
into the cabin on hands and knees, his cheeks frozen and a
strange numbness about his feet. Weatherbee grinned malevolently,
but made no offer to help him. He thrust needles into his toes
and thawed them out by the stove. A week later mortification set
in.

But the clerk had his own troubles. The dead men came out of
their graves more frequently now, and rarely left him, waking or
sleeping. He grew to wait and dread their coming, never passing
the twin cairns without a shudder. One night they came to him in
his sleep and led him forth to an appointed task. Frightened into
inarticulate horror, he awoke between the heaps of stones and
fled wildly to the cabin. But he had lain there for some time,
for his feet and cheeks were also frozen.

Sometimes he became frantic at their insistent presence, and
danced about the cabin, cutting the empty air with an axe, and
smashing everything within reach.

During these ghostly encounters, Cuthfert huddled into his
blankets and followed the madman about with a cocked revolver,
ready to shoot him if he came too near.

But, recovering from one of these spells, the clerk noticed the