plague ceased, because winter stretched its wings out swiftly o'er the
plains from frigid ranges in the West. And then Pere Champagne fell ill
again.

And this last great sickness cured his madness: and he remembered whence
he had come, and what befell him at Diamond City so many moons ago. And
he prayed them, when he knew his time was come, that they would go to
Lonely Valley and tell his story to the woman whom he loved; and say that
he was going to a strange but pleasant Land, and that there he would
await her coming. He begged them that they would go at once, that she
might know, and not strain her eyes to blindness, and be sick at heart
because he came not. And he told them her name, and drew the coverlet up
about his head and seemed to sleep; but he waked between the day and
dark, and gently cried: "The snow is heavy on the mountain . . . and
the Valley is below. . . . 'Gardez, mon Pere!' . . . Ah, Nathalie!"
And they buried him between the dark and dawn.

Though winds were fierce, and travel full of peril, they kept their word,
and passed along wide steppes of snow, until they entered passes of the
mountains, and again into the plains; and at last one 'poudre' day, when
frost was shaking like shreds of faintest silver through the air, Shon
McGann's sight fled. But he would not turn back--a promise to a dying
man was sacred, and he could follow if he could not lead; and there was
still some pemmican, and there were martens in the woods, and wandering
deer that good spirits hunted into the way of the needy; and Pierre's
finger along the gun was sure.

Pierre did not tell Shon that for many days they travelled woods where no
sunshine entered; where no trail had ever been, nor foot of man had trod:
that they had lost their way. Nor did he make his comrade know that one