Somewhat dazed, I started to arise ... when a sharp pain in my left ankle filled me with alarm. What if a tendon had been sprained? Among these lonely altitudes, that might be a calamity! But when I attempted to walk, I found my injury not quite so bad as I had feared. The ankle caused me much pain, yet was not wholly useless; so that I diagnosed the trouble as a simple strain rather than a sprain. But there could be no further question of reaching Yulada that day. With a bitter glance at the disdainful, indomitable mistress of the peak, I started on my way back to Sobul. And I was exceedingly lucky to get back at all, for my ankle distressed me more and more as I plodded downward, and there were moments when it seemed as if it would not bear me another step. So slowly did I move that I had to make camp that evening on the bare slopes at the edge of the forest; and it was not until late the following day that I re-entered the village. And all during the return trip, when I lay tossing in the glow of the campfire, or when I clung to the wall-like ledges in hazardous descents, I was obsessed by strange thoughts; and in my dreams that night I saw a huge taunting face, singularly like Yulada's, which mocked me that I should match my might against the mountain's. CHAPTER XIII _THE BIRDS FLY NORTH_ It was with a flaming expectation and a growing joy that I watched the spring gradually burst into blossom. The appearance of the first green grass, the unfolding of the pale yellowish leaves on the trees, the budding of the earliest wildflowers and the cloudy pink and white of the orchards, were as successive signals from a new world. And the clear bright skies, the fresh gentle breezes, and the birds twittering from unseen branches, all seemed to join in murmuring the same refrain: the warmer days were coming, the days of my deliverance! Soon, very soon, the Ibandru would be back! And among the Ibandru I should see Yasma! Every morning now I awakened with reborn hope; and every morning, and all the day, I would go ambling about the village, peering into the deserted huts and glancing toward the woods for sign of some welcome returning figure. But at first all my waiting seemed of no avail. The Ibandru did not return; and in the evening I would slouch back to my cabin in dejection that would always make way for new hope. Day after day passed thus; and meantime the last traces of winter were vanishing, the fields became dotted with waving rose-red and violet and pale lemon tints; the deciduous trees were taking on a sturdier green; insects began to chirp and murmur in many a reviving chorus; and the woods seemed more thickly populated with winged singers. And while I waited and still waited, insidious fears crept into my mind. Could it be that the Ibandru would not return at all?--that Yasma had vanished forever, like the enchanted princess of a fairy tale?