him.

By the evening he was well-nigh worn out with weariness, and was at his
wits' end what to do.

Night fell, and the snowdrifts increased.

As now he sat him down on a stone and fell a brooding and pondering how
he should escape with his life, a pair of snow-shoes came gliding so
smoothly towards him out of the sea-fog and stood still just in front of
his feet.

"As you have found me, you may as well find the way back also," said he.

So he put them on, and let the snow-shoes go their own way over hillside
and steep cliff. He let not his own eyes guide him or his own feet carry
him, and the swifter he went the denser the snowflakes and the driving
sea-spray came up against him, and the blast very nearly blew him off
the snow-shoes.

Up hill and down dale he went over all the places where he had fared
during the daytime, and it sometimes seemed as if he had nothing solid
beneath him at all, but was flying in the air.

Suddenly the snow-shoes stood stock still, and he was standing just
outside the entrance of the Gan-Finn's hut.

There stood Seimke. She was looking for him.

"I sent my snow-shoes after thee," said she, "for I marked that the Finn
had bewitched the land so that thou should'st not find the boat. Thy
_life_ is safe, for he has given thee shelter in his house, but it were
not well for thee to see him this evening."

Then she smuggled him in, so that the Finn did not perceive it in the
thick smoke, and she gave him meat and a place to rest upon.

But when he awoke in the night, he heard an odd sound, and there was a
buzzing and a singing far away in the air:

"The Finn the boat can never bind,
The Fly the boatman cannot find,
But round in aimless whirls doth wind."

The Finn was sitting among the ashes and _joejking_, and muttering till
the ground quite shook, while Seimke lay with her forehead to the floor
and her hands clasped tightly round the back of her neck, praying
against him to the Finn God. Then Jack understood that the Gan-Finn was
still seeking after him amidst the snowflakes and sea-fog, and that his
life was in danger from magic spells.

So he dressed himself before it was light, went out, and came tramping
in again all covered with snow, and said he had been after bears in
their winter retreats. But never had he been in such a sea-fog before;
he had groped about far and wide before he found his way back into the
hut again, though he stood just outside