an who bent forward. He was about fifty. The hand that
rested for a moment on David Raine's knee was red and knotted. It was
the hand of a man who had lived his life in struggling with the
wilderness. And the face, too, was of such a man; a face coloured and
toughened by the tannin of wind and blizzard and hot northern sun, with
eyes cobwebbed about by a myriad of fine lines that spoke of years spent
under the strain of those things. He was not a large man. He was shorter
than David Raine. There was a slight droop to his shoulders. Yet about
him there was a strength, a suppressed energy ready to act, a zestful
eagerness for life and its daily mysteries which the other and younger
man did not possess. Throughout many thousands of square miles of the
great northern wilderness this older man was known as Father Roland, the
Missioner.

His companion was not more than thirty-eight. Perhaps he was a year or
two younger. It may be that the wailing of the wind outside, the strange
voices that were in it and the chilling gloom of their little
compartment made of him a more striking contrast to Father Roland than
he would have been under other conditions. His eyes were a clear and
steady gray as they met Father Roland's. They were eyes that one could
not easily forget. Except for his eyes he was like a man who had been
sick, and was still sick. The Missioner had made his own guess. And now,
with his hand on the other's knee, he said:

"And you say--that you are afraid--for this friend of yours?"

David Raine nodded his head. Lines deepened a little about his mouth.

"Yes, I am afraid." For a moment he turned to the night. A fiercer
volley of the little snow demons beat against the window, as though his
pale face just beyond their reach stirred them to greater fury. "I have
a most disturbing inclination to worry about him," he added, and
shrugged his shoulders slightly.

He faced Father Roland again.

"Did you ever hear of a man losing himself?" he asked. "I don't mean in
the woods, or in a desert, or by going mad. I mean in the other
way--heart, body, soul; losing one's grip, you might call it, until
there was no earth to stand on. Did you?"

"Yes--many years ago--I knew of a man who lost himself in that way,"
replied the Missioner, straightening in his seat. "But he found himself
again. And this friend of yours? I am interested. This is the first
time in three years that I have been down to the edge of civilization,
and