Then he rebuilt his fire, pausing every few moments in the operation to listen for a suspicious sound.

It was very cold.

He noticed, after a little, that the weird sound of the lights over the Pole had become only a ghostly whisper.

The stars were growing dimmer, and he watched them as they seemed slowly to recede farther and farther away from the world of which he was a part.

This dying out of the stars always interested him.