The wind had lulled. The heavens were clear. The Milky Way glowed with dazzling sheen above the forest's nicking, where the main road led. Wherever the eye found interstice between the fronds of spruce and hemlock the stars spangled the frosty blue. There was a hush so profound that a listener heard the pulsing of his blood. And yet there was something over all that was not silence, nor yet a sound, but a rhythmical, slow respiration, as though the world breathed and one heard it, and, hearing it, could believe that nature was mortal--friend or kin. Christopher walked to the first turn of the logging-road, and the young man followed him; and when the trees had shut from sight the snow-heaped roofs and the yellow lights and all sign of human neighbors, Christopher stopped, leaned against a tree, and gazed up at the sparkling heavens. "I reckoned your feelings was gettin' away from you a bit, Mr. Wade," said the old man, quietly, "and I thought we'd step out for a while where we can sort of get a grip on somethin' stationary, as you might say. In time of deep trouble, when they happen to be round, a chap feels inclined to grab holt of poor human critters, but they ain't much of a prop to hang to. Not when there's the big woods!" "The big woods have got her, Christopher," choked the young man, despairingly. "And I'm afraid!" "The big woods look savagest to you when you're peekin' into them from a camp window in the night," declared the old man. "But when you're right in 'em, like we are now, they ain't anything but friendly. Look around you! Listen! There's nothing to be afraid of. Let the big woods talk to you a moment, my boy. Forget there are men for just a little while. I've let the woods talk to me in some of the sore times in my life, and they've always comforted me when I really set myself to listen." "My God, I can only hear the words that are written on this scrap of paper!" cried Wade. He shook "Ladder" Lane's crumpled letter before the woodsman's face, and Christopher quietly reached for it, took it, and tore it up. "When a paper talks louder than the good old woods talk, it's time to get rid of it," he remarked, and tossed the bits over the snow.