It took Thor at least half an hour to arrange himself just as he wanted to sleep. Then Muskwa curled up beside him. The cub was very warm and very comfortable. That night the storm raged, and the snow fell deep. It came up the canyon in clouds, and it drifted down through the canyon roof in still thicker clouds, and all the world was buried deep. When morning came there was no cavern door, there were no rocks, and no black and purple of tree and shrub. All was white and still, and there was no longer the droning music in the valley. Deep back in the cavern Muskwa moved restlessly. Thor heaved a deep sigh. After that long and soundly they slept. And it may be that they dreamed. THE VALLEY OF SILENT MEN "You are going up from among a people who have many gods to a people who have but one," said Ransom quietly, looking across at the other. "It would be better for you if you turned back. I've spent four years in the Government service, mostly north of Fifty-three, and I know what I'm talking about. I've read all of your books carefully, and I tell you now--go back. If you strike up into the Bay country, as you say you're going to, every dream of socialism you ever had will be shattered, and you will laugh at your own books. Go back!" Roscoe's fine young face lighted up with a laugh at his old college chum's seriousness. "You're mistaken, Ranny," he said. "I'm not a socialist but a sociologist. There's a distinction, isn't there? I don't believe that my series of books will be at all complete without a study of socialism as it exists in its crudest form, and as it must exist up here in the North. My material for this last book will show what tremendous progress the civilization of two centuries on this continent has made over the lowest and wildest forms of human brotherhood. That's my idea, Ranny. I'm an optimist. I believe that every invention we make, that every step we take in the advancement of science, of mental and physical uplift, brings us just so much nearer to the Nirvana of universal love. This trip of mine among your wild people of the North will give me a good picture of what civilization has gained." "What it has lost, you will say a little later," replied Ransom. "See here, Roscoe--has it ever occurred to you that brotherly love, as you call it--the real thing--ended when civilization began? Has it ever occurred to you that somewhere away back in the darkest ages your socialistic Nirvana may have existed, and that you sociologists might still find traces of it, if you would? Has the idea ever come to you that there has been a time when the world has been better than it is to-day, and better than it ever will be again? Will you, as a student of life, concede that the savage can teach you a lesson? Will any of your kind? No, for you are self-appointed civilizers, working according to a certain code."