him; but what of this old man? He had brought him out of the wilds, out
of the unknown--was he only taking him into the unknown again?
Were there friends, any friends anywhere in the world waiting for him?
He called himself by no name, he said he had no name. Whence came he?
Of whom? Whither was he wending now? Bickersteth had thought of the
problem often, and he had no answer for it save that he must be taken
care of, if not by others, then by himself; for the old man had saved him
from drowning; had also saved him from an awful death on a March day when
he fell into a great hole and was knocked insensible in the drifting
snow; had saved him from brooding on himself--the beginning of madness--
by compelling him to think for another. And sometimes, as he had looked
at the old man, his imagination had caught the spirit of the legend of
the Indians, and he had cried out, "O soul, come back and give him
memory--give him back his memory, Manitou the mighty!"

Looking on the old man now, an impulse seized him. "Dear old man," he
said, speaking as one speaks to a child that cannot understand, "you
shall never want, while I have a penny, or have head or hands to work.
But is there no one that you care for or that cares for you, that you
remember, or that remembers you?"

The old man shook his head though not with understanding, and he laid a
hand on the young man's shoulder, and whispered:

"Once it was always snow, but now it is green, the land. I have seen it
--I have seen it once." His shaggy eyebrows gathered over, his eyes
searched, searched the face of John Bickersteth. "Once, so long ago--
I cannot think," he added helplessly.

"Dear old man," Bickersteth said gently, knowing he would not wholly