crooned the voice, and its effect in the stillness of the night was to frighten Snap more even than Shnena or the wolf. Creeping in the direction from which the sound came, so stealthily that he did not even hear himself move, Snap got at last to a point from which he could see the strange singer. Crouching under a log sat the wretched lunatic, naked to his waist, his grey hair hanging in elf-locks over his eyes, and in his arms a bundle, wrapped round in his own coat and shirt, which the poor fellow rocked as a woman rocks her child, singing the while a snatch of a song which he had heard in happier days sung to his own little ones. There were tears in Snap's eyes as he looked, and he longed to go to the man's help, but he dared not. Alone he would have no strength to compel the lunatic to do what was reasonable, and to talk to him would be idle. At that moment the man looked up and sat listening like a wild beast who hears the hounds on his scent. 'They want to take you too, my darling,' he whispered, and Snap could hear every word as if it had been yelled into his ears, 'but they shan't, the devils! they shan't; we'll die together first!' Muttering and glancing back, the man crawled on hands and knees into the scrub and was gone. Snap rubbed his eyes; it seemed like a dream, so noiselessly did the madman creep away and disappear. As he stood, still staring at the place, Snap heard a bough crack behind him, then another and another, and the tread of men approaching in the snow. In another minute Nares had the boy by the hand, the weary night-watch was over, and a match inserted amongst the twigs sent up a bright flame as cheering as the voice of his friends. Having partially thawed, and eaten as much as he could, Snap told Nares and his two companions what he had just seen, and as morning was just breaking, and active exercise seemed the boy's best chance of ever getting warm again, the four once more took up the trail.