Three-quarters of an hour later they came to the first of the timber. He still held her hand. He was still holding it, with the brilliant starlight falling upon them, when his chin shot suddenly into the air again, alert and fighting, and he cried, softly: "What was that?" "Nothing," said the woman. "I heard nothing-- unless it was the wind in the trees." She drew away from him. The dogs whined and slunk close to the box. Across the Barren came a low, wailing wind. "The storm is coming back," said MacVeigh. "It must have been the wind that I heard." III IN HONOR OF THE LIVING For a few moments after uttering those words Billy stood silent listening for a sound that was not the low moaning of the wind far out on the Barren. He was sure that he had heard it-- something very near, almost at his feet, and yet it was a sound which he could not place or understand. He looked at the woman. She was gazing steadily at him. "I hear it now," she said. "It is the wind. It has frightened me. It makes such terrible sounds at times-- out on the Barren. A little while ago-- I thought-- I heard-- a child crying--" Billy saw her clutch a hand at her throat, and there were both terror and grief in the eyes that never for an instant left his face. He understood. She was almost ready to give way under the terrible strain of the Barren. He smiled at her, and spoke in a voice that he might have used to a little child. "You are tired, little girl?" "Yes-- yes-- I am tired--" "And hungry and cold?" "Yes." "Then we will camp in the timber." They went on until they came to a growth of spruce so dense that it formed a shelter from both snow and wind, with a thick carpet of brown needles under foot. They were shut out from the stars, and in the darkness MacVeigh began to whistle cheerfully. He unstrapped his pack and spread out one of his blankets close to the box and wrapped the other about the woman's shoulders. "You sit here while I make a fire," he said. He piled up dry needles over a precious bit of his birchbark and struck a flame. In the glowing light he found other fuel, and added to the fire until the crackling blaze leaped as high as his head. The woman's face was hidden, and she looked as though she had fallen asleep in the warmth of the fire. For half an hour Mac-Veigh dragged in fuel until he had a great pile of it in readiness.