Gradually he widened his circuit, stumbling on over the slippery
leaves, keeping a wary eye out for the thing on the ground that
he sought.

He had seen no game in the forest, and wondered a little. Once or
twice he fancied that he heard some animal moving near, but when
he listened all was quiet, save for the hoarse calling of a raven
in some near tree. Suddenly he saw the raven, and at the same
moment it rose, croaking the alarm. Up through a near thicket
floundered a cloud of black birds, flapping their wings. They
were ravens, too, all croaking and flapping through the
rain-soaked branches, mounting higher, higher, only to wheel and
sail and swoop in circles, round and round in the gray sky above
his head. He shivered and hesitated, knowing that the dead lay
there in the thicket. And he was right; but when he saw the
thing he covered his eyes with both hands and his heart rose in
his throat. At last he stepped forward and looked into the vacant
eye-sockets of a skull from which shreds of a long beard still
hung, wet and straggling.

It lay under the washed-out roots of a fir-tree, the bare ribs
staring through the torn clothing, the fleshless hands clasped
about a steel box.

How he brought himself to get the box from that cage of bones he
never knew. At last he had it, and stepped back, the sweat
starting from every pore. But his work was not finished. What the
ravens and wolves had left of the thing he pushed with sticks
into a hollow, and painfully covered it with forest mould. Over
this he pulled great lumps of muddy clay, trampling them down
firmly, until at last the dead lay underground and a heap of
stones marked the sepulchre.

The ravens had alighted in the tree-tops around the spot,
watching him gravely, croaking and sidling away when he moved
with abruptness. Looking up into the tree-tops he saw some shreds
of stuff clinging to the branches, perhaps tatters from the
balloon or the dead man's clothing. Near him on the ground lay a
charred heap that was once the wicker car of the balloon. This he
scattered with a stick, laid a covering of green moss on the
mound, placed two sticks crosswise at the head, took off his cap,
then went his way, the steel box buttoned securely in his breast.
As he walked on through the forest, a wolf fled from the
darkening undergrowth, hesitated, turned, cringing half boldly,
half sullenly, watching him with changeless, incandescent eyes.

Darkness was creeping into t