I believe I had gone but a short distance beyond my last view over the valley when suddenly I turned about sharply to my right whence I thought I heard a low moan. My next thought was that my fancy had played some trick on me, but as I stood in complete silence looking about in every direction I heard again this same sound as of one in pain, and as I pushed forward I noticed that the footprints turned toward the direction of the sound and I saw a large rock in front of me, the snow on it displaced and disturbed here and there as if some one had mounted it. I was about to scale the slippery height when again I heard the moaning sound so near I thought it must almost be at my feet and yet I could see nothing; but a moment later as I broke through a thicket I started back horrified to see at one side of this great rock the cloaked form of our Brother Alburtus prostrate in the snow. [Illustration: "Again I spake to him. 'Dost not know me, Brother Alburtus?'" Page 243.] Then as I rushed to him and lifted his head on my arm I saw the blood rushing freely from a long cut directly across his brow so that I might have thought the scar he so long carried had been opened by the force of some fall. I could see too, he had not been hurt long, for the blood flowed too freely for that. With the pity and horror in my heart was also a strong feeling of guilt that we had so carelessly let our brother leave us without following and protecting him in his aimless wanderings. When first I lifted up his head I saw that he was unconscious, but I wiped away the blood as best I could and bound the ugly wound with pieces from my cloak, and then rubbed his face with snow. After a long while he opened his eyes and looked at me wonderingly. "'Tis thy Brother Jabez," I said gently; but he only looked at me with meaningless gaze, his hands lying so still and helpless it would have rejoiced me to see him rub them together as of old. Again I spake to him, "Dost not know me, Brother Alburtus?" But still he seemed not to regard my words, and leaving him for a brief space, fearing his lying in the snow would be his death even if the wound would not, I brake from the trees and bushes about me armful after armful of twigs and branches making a bed of them on the southern side of the rock where he would be sheltered from the cold winds and we could catch the warmth of the sun shining down through the trees. Then I dragged him tenderly upon his rough bed making him as comfortable as I could, rubbing his hands to warm them and then putting them within his cloak so they might not freeze, during all of which he seemed not to pay the slightest attention to me. After a long wait he tried to lift his head, and I said to him, "Art feeling better, Brother Alburtus?" whereat he looked at me in great wonderment and said weakly, "Dost not know me, Thomas? Where am I? What is wrong with my head?"