She handed him the coat and flew up over the tree‑tops, disappearing Almost immediately in the darkness. Mercer slung the coat around him and sat down to wait. He sat there perhaps fifteen or twenty minutes, staring up at the silent, motionless tree‑tops, and thinking all sorts of vague, impossible dangers impending. Then he heard her wings flapping and saw her flitting down through the trees.
"Very near, they are," she said as soon as she reached the ground. "A fire—they have—and they are ready now to sleep."
They went on slowly along the trail, and soon saw the glimmer of a fire ahead. "A camp for the night," whispered Mercer.
"It must be nearly morning now."
He looked about him and smiled as he realized that no light would come with the morning. Always this same dim twilight here—and eternal darkness on ahead. "Good Lord, what a place to live!" he muttered.
They crept on cautiously until they were within sight of the camp. A large fire was burning briskly. Most of the men were wrapped in their blankets, apparently asleep; three were sitting upright, on guard. Mercer and Anina crept away.
"We'd better camp, too," Mercer said when they were well out of hearing. "They will probably stay there four or five hours, anyway. Lord, I'm tired." He laid his hand on her shoulder gently, almost timidly. "Aren't you tired, too, little girl?"
"Yes," she answered simply, and met his eyes with her gentle little smile. "Oh, yes—I tired. Very much."
They did not dare light a fire, nor had they any means of doing so. They went back from the trail a short distance, finding a little recess between two fallen logs, where the ground was soft with a heavy moss. Here they decided to sleep for a few hours.
A small pool of water had collected on a barren surface of rock near by, and from this they drank. Then they sat down, together and ate about half the few remaining pieces of bread which Mercer was carrying in the pockets of his jacket. They were both tired out. Anina particularly was very sleepy.