This would never do.  He must climb down and walk briskly, or return to the hut.  Maybe there was a bear, after all, behind one of the hummocks, and a shot, or the chance of one, would scatter his head clear of these tom-fooling notions.  He would have a search round.

What was that, moving . . . on a hummock, not five hundred yards away?  He leaned forward to gaze.

Nothing now:  but he had seen something.  He lowered himself to the eaves by the north corner, and from the eaves to the drift piled there.  The drift was frozen solid, but for a treacherous crust of fresh snow.  His foot slipped upon this, and down he slid of a heap.

Luckily he had been careful to sling the guns tightly at his back.  He picked himself up, and unstrapping one, took a step into the bright moon-light to examine the nipples; took two steps:  and stood stock-still.

There, before him, on the frozen coat of snow, was a footprint.  No:  two, three, four—­many footprints:  prints of a naked human foot:  right foot, left foot, both naked, and blood in each print—­a little smear.

It had come, then.  He was mad for certain.  He saw them:  he put his fingers in them; touched the frozen blood.  The snow before the door was trodden thick with them—­some going, some returning.

“The latch . . . lifted . . .”  Suddenly he recalled the figure he had seen moving upon the hummock, and with a groan he set his face northward and gave chase.  Oh, he was mad for certain!  He ran like a madman—­ floundering, slipping, plunging in his clumsy moccasins.  “Take us the foxes, the little foxes . . .  My beloved put in his hand by the hole of the door, and my bowels were moved for him . . .  I charge you, O daughters of Jerusalem . . .  I charge you . . .  I charge you . . .”

He ran thus for three hundred yards maybe, and then stopped as suddenly as he had started.

His mates—­they must not see these footprints, or they would go mad too:  mad as he.  No, he must cover them up, all within sight of the hut.  And to-morrow he would come alone, and cover those farther afield.  Slowly he retraced his steps.  The footprints—­those which pointed towards the hut and those which pointed away from it—­lay close together; and he knelt before each, breaking fresh snow over the hollows and carefully hiding the blood.  And now a great happiness filled his heart; interrupted once or twice as he worked by a feeling that someone was following and watching him.  Once he turned northwards and gazed, making a telescope of his hands.  He saw nothing, and fell again to his long task.