roachful, non-comprehending, loving gaze.

Bickersteth understood a little of the Chinook language, which is familiar
to most Indian tribes, and he had learned that the Indians knew nothing
exact concerning the old man; but rumors had passed from tribe to tribe
that this white man had lived forever in the farthest North among the
arctic tribes, and that he passed from people to people, disappearing into
the untenanted wilderness, but reappearing again among stranger tribes,
never resting, and as one always seeking what he could not find.

One thing had helped this old man in all his travels and sojourning. He
had, as it seemed to the native people, a gift of the hands; for when they
were sick a few moments' manipulation of his huge, quiet fingers
vanquished pain. A few herbs he gave in tincture, and these also were
praised; but it was a legend that when he was persuaded to lay on his
hands and close his eyes, and with his fingers to "search for the pain and
find it, and kill it," he always prevailed. They believed that, though his
body was on earth, his soul was with Manitou, and that it was his soul
which came into him again, and gave the Great Spirit's healing to the
fingers. This had been the man's safety through how many years--or how
many generations--they did not know; for legends regarding the pilgrim had
grown and were fostered by the medicine-men, who, by giving him great age
and supernatural power, could, with more self-respect, apologize for their
own incapacity.

So the years--how many it was impossible to tell, since he did not know or
would not say--had gone on; and now, after ceaseless wandering, his face
was turned toward that civilization out of which he had come so long
ago--or was it so long ago?--one generation, or two, or ten? It seemed to
Bickersteth at times as though it were ten, so strange, so unworldly was
his companion. At first he thought that the man remembered more than he
would appear to acknowledge, but he found that after a day or two
everything that happened as they journeyed was also forgotten.

It was only visible things, or sounds, that appeared to open the doors of
memory of the most recent happenings. These happenings, if not varied,
were of critical moment, since, passing down from the land of unchanging
ice and snow, they had come into March and April storms and the perils of
the rapids and the swollen floods of May. Now, in June, two years and a
month since Bickersteth had gon