The Angler's Story 55 



in the snow and resting in the lee of a great 

 boulder. 



But the weirdness of the situation prevented 

 him from sleeping. He would start up half dream- 

 ing, half awake, to hear either in imagination 

 or in fact the cry of some wild beast. A strange 

 mental condition had taken possession of him, 

 a stupendous elation, as though the mind were 

 governing his physical being to the extent of 

 being able to force him to continual exertion and 

 to carry him through, when the body was to all 

 intents and purposes unable to respond; he 

 seemed to be in a trance, and only by seeing 

 and handling the little burden that he held next 

 to his heart in the big bag could he recall his 

 mind to its normal poise. He had seen a horse 

 run day and night until it fell dead, and he. 

 realized that his almost continuous performance 

 had seriously involved the adjustment of his 

 faculties. He would not drop physically, but 

 he might fail mentally, and this fear grew as 

 he lay listening to the extremes of sound: the 

 slightest the falling of snowflakes; the loudest 

 the down-rushing of hill- and mountain-sides, 

 the avalanche. He imagined that the snow as 

 it drifted down the canon took on strange shapes. 

 Now a phantom ship under full sail went plough- 

 ing on ; he could see the bellying canvas, the 

 spume beneath the bow as she careened; then 

 the eddies twisted the great snow sheets into 



