Suddenly, a bend in the stream hiding the star, I became aware that Diccon was no longer keeping step with me, but had fallen somewhat to the rear. I turned, and he was leaning heavily, with drooping head, against the trunk of a tree.

“Art so worn as that?” I exclaimed. “Put more heart into thy heels, man!”

He straightened himself and strode on beside me. “I don’t know what came over me for a minute,” he answered. “The wolves are loud to-night. I hope they’ll keep to their side of the water.”

A stone’s throw farther on, the stream curving to the west, we left it, and found ourselves in a sparsely wooded glade, with a bare and sandy soil beneath our feet, and above, in the western sky, a