Sundry tappings on his left foot signified grateful acknowledgment of the fact, as Brutus settled himself afresh and dropped back into the land of dreams, whither Lenox would gladly have followed him. For the week had been a hard one, and he was very tired. The frost seemed to have gripped both body and brain, and too long a spell of mountaineering at high altitudes was beginning to tell upon his strength; so that he had been thankful for the flat expanses of the Pamirs, which had made riding possible and pleasant once again. His entrance into the brigand state, and his polite, but unequivocal ultimatum to its insubordinate chief had been carried through, not without moments of uncertainty and danger, yet with complete success, and throughout the past six weeks he had been enjoying his first big tour of that strange region of raised valleys and vast, wind-swept spaces where the boundary lines of three Empires meet. Since the night when he had flung away the cherished pill-box that now lay regally entombed under fifty feet of snow, he had suffered no collapse. His gradual method of unwinding the chain had averted that final danger and degradation. Bat there had been days when all his training in self-discipline had been needed to restrain him from applying to Zyarulla, whose kummerbund held a perennial store of the precious drug,--the more so since his Ladaki 'cook'--chosen mainly for his powers of endurance--knew rather less about the primitive requirements of camp catering than Lenox himself; and in spite of keen air and exercise his appetite had steadily fallen away. There were rare days, of course, when he could have eaten camel's flesh, and that gratefully; but there were many more when the mere man yearned towards the luxury of plate and silver, of varied meats, and the sparkle of an iced peg. To-night his 'dinner' consisted of a large cup of cocoa, some native biscuits, and a lump of milk-cheese made by the Khirgiz, whose domed huts and scattered flocks are the only signs of human life in this dry region of snow and sun and tireless wind. On the table at his elbow, besides the steaming cocoa, were two camp candlesticks, some closely written sheets of a letter to Quita, and her last that had reached him outside Hunza five weeks ago. Each one he had received showed more clearly how the mysterious influence of absence was winning for him that volatile essence of her which had eluded his grasp throughout six months of personal contact, and years of unwearied devotion. Of the deeper, hidden forces at work on his behalf, he guessed nothing. Only he was aware of subtle changes taking place in her--of an indefinable softening and uplifting of the whole woman, that increased tenfold his longing for a reunion which promised to be closer, more consummate than the best that they had achieved as yet.