hill: The Man was sculptured rock. His white hair was chiselled on his
broad brow, his face was a solemn pathos petrified, his lips were curled
with an iron contempt, an incalculable anger.

The sun went down, and darkness gathered about The Man. Pierre reached
out his hand, and drank the water and ate the coarse bread that had been
put near him. He guessed that trees or protruding ledges had broken his
fall, and that he had been rescued and brought here. As he lay thinking,
The Man entered the doorway, stooping much to do so. With flints he
lighted a wick which hung from a wooden bowl of bear's oil; then
kneeling, held it above his head, and looked at Pierre. And Pierre, who
had never feared anyone, shrank from the look in The Man's eyes. But
when the other saw that Pierre was awake, a distant kindness came upon
his face, and he nodded gravely; but he did not speak. Presently a great
tremor as of pain shook all his limbs, and he set the candle on the
ground, and with his stalwart hands arranged afresh the bandages about
Pierre's injured arm and leg. Pierre spoke at last.

"You are The Man"? he said. The other bowed his head.

"You saved me from those devils in the valley?" A look of impregnable
hardness came into The Man's face, but he pressed Pierre's hand for
answer; and though the pressure was meant to be gentle, Pierre winced
painfully. The candle spluttered, and the hut filled with a sickly
smoke. The Man brought some bear skins and covered the sufferer, for,
the season being autumn, the night was cold. Pierre, who had thus spent
his first sane and conscious hour in many days, fell asleep. What time
it was when he waked he was not sure, but it was to hear a metallic
click-click come to him through the clear air of night. It was a
pleasant noise as of steel and rock: the work of some lonely stone-cutter