Their way still lay among the mountains and little food could they there find, so one evening Feargus started out in quest thereof and his feet sank deep in the snow at every step and made him weary, but he fared on. At last he turned, thinking to travel back by his footprints, but of a sudden the sky had grown overcast, and a gust of wind soughed up the glen and in a moment it was as though a mist had fallen upon him, for he could see neither behind nor before, nor sky nor land, so small and close fell the snow. On he stumbled trying now to guess the way back and crying out at intervals, “Torfrida! Torfrida!” Then he stooped down to seek the footprints, but found that all were filled with the driving snow; still he went on hour after hour and like to drop for weariness, and ever and anon crying “Torfrida!” And Torfrida lay awaiting him in her house builded of snow on the top of a steep hill; for they feared to stay in the glens at that time lest the snow-drifts should bury them. As the darkness closed in she set a light to her fire. Then, of a sudden, the storm burst upon them and had it not been that their place of halting was cunningly chosen in a spot sheltered from the winds common in that quarter, her fire would have been quenched altogether. The darkness thickened and fear fell upon her for her lover, and she stood in the doorway watching over the plain below. It might be about midnight when far away across the fells in front of her she thought she heard the cry “Torfrida!” She fancied it foreboded his death, and wished herself dead, for their troubles seemed like to overwhelm them. All night the tempest raged, and all the day following, and still she fed the fire, till her heap of faggots grew low, for she knew that it would be his only guide, if guide he longer needed. On the night of the second day she again thought she heard that weird cry “Torfrida!” and arose and shrieked “Feargus! Feargus!” Then she fancied she saw a great white form staggering about far down on the moor beneath, till at length it fell or seemed to, then slowly and with little life arose once more; then she tried to go out to it, but was too weak and full of horror, for a creature of another world this might be and she swooned, and as she awoke suddenly a giant form rose up before her deep covered with snow frozen to it from beard to foot, and with one wild cry, “Torfrida!” it staggered forward and fell headlong at her feet, and she knew that he had come. CHAPTER XXII HOW THEY FELL AMONG FOES