over a portion
of a fur garment that seemed fastened to the floor of the corridor
close to the wall. In the darkness I could not see what held it,
but by groping with my hands I discovered that it was wedged beneath
the bottom of a closed door.

Pushing the portal aside, I found myself upon the threshold of a
small chamber, the walls of which were lined with hooks from which
depended suits of the complete outdoor apparel of the yellow men.

Situated as it was at the mouth of a tunnel leading from the palace,
it was quite evident that this was the dressing-room used by the
nobles leaving and entering the hothouse city, and that Thurid,
having knowledge of it, had stopped here to outfit himself and
Dejah Thoris before venturing into the bitter cold of the arctic
world beyond.

In his haste he had dropped several garments upon the floor, and
the telltale fur that had fallen partly within the corridor had
proved the means of guiding me to the very spot he would least have
wished me to have knowledge of.

It required but the matter of a few seconds to don the necessary
orluk-skin clothing, with the heavy, fur-lined boots that are so
essential a part of the garmenture of one who would successfully
contend with the frozen trails and the icy winds of the bleak
northland.

Once more I stepped beyond the tunnel's mouth to find the fresh
tracks of Thurid and Dejah Thoris in the new-fallen snow. Now, at
last, was my task an easy one, for though the going was rough in
the extreme, I was no longer vexed by doubts as to the direction
I should follow, or harassed by darkness or hidden dangers.

Through a snow-covered canyon the way led up toward the summit of
low hills. Beyond these it dipped again into another canon, only
to rise a quarter-mile farther on toward a pass which skirted the
flank of a rocky hill.

I could see by the signs of those who had gone before that when Dejah
Thoris had walked she had been continually holding back, and that
the black man had been compelled to drag her. For other stretches
only his foot-prints were visible, deep and close together in
the heavy snow, and I knew from these signs that then he had been
forced to carry her, and I could well imagine that she had fought
him fiercely every step of the way.

As I came round the jutting promontory of the hill's shoulder I saw
that which quickened my pulses and set my heart to beating high,
for within a tiny basin between the crest of this hil