"But the cold would be easier to bear than the loneliness. There is little to do, almost nothing to do; and I sit brooding on the cabin floor, or stand brooding near the fire; and life seems without aim or benefit. Strange thoughts keep creeping through my mind--visions of a limp form dangling on a rope from log rafters; or of a half-buried form that the snow has numbed to forgetfulness. But always there are other visions to chide and reproach; I remember a merry day in the woods, when two brown eyes laughed at me from beneath auburn curls; and I hear voices that call as if from the future, and see hands that take mine gently and restrain them from violence. Perhaps I am growing weak of mind and will, for my emotions flow like a child's; I would be ashamed to admit--though I confess it freely enough to the heedless paper--that more than once, in the long afternoon and the slow dismal twilight, the tears rolled down from my eyes. "As I write these words, it is evening--only seven o'clock, my watch tells me, though I might believe it to be midnight. The blazes still flare in the fireplace, and I am stretched full-length on the floor, trying to see by the meager light. The storm has almost died down; only by fits and starts it mutters now, like a beast whose frenzy has spent itself. But other, more ominous sounds fill the air. From time to time I hear the barking of a jackal, now near, now far; while louder and more long-drawn and mournful, there comes at intervals the fierce deep wailing of a wolf, answered from the remote woods by other wolves, till all the world seems to resound with a demoniac chorus. Of all noises I have ever heard, this is to me the most terrorizing; and though safe within pine walls, I tremble where I lie by the fire, even as the cave-man may have done at that same soul-racking sound. I know, of course, how absurd this is; yet I have pictures of sly slinking feet that pad silently through the snow, and keen hairy muzzles that trail my footsteps even to this door, and long gleaming jaws that open. Only by forcing myself to write can I keep my mind from such thoughts; but, even so, I shudder whenever that dismal call comes howling, howling from the dark, as if with all the concentrated horror and ferocity in the universe!" CHAPTER XII _THE MISTRESS OF THE PEAK_