Farther and farther he had wandered from the forest.

He had crossed the "burn," and was in the open plain, with the rough ridges cutting through and the big river at the edge of it.

It was not so gloomy out here, and his loneliness weighed upon him less heavily than in the deep timber.
And across this plain came the voice of the wolves.
He did not move away from it to-night.

He waited, silhouetted against the vivid starlight at the crest of a rocky knoll, and the top of this knoll was so small that another could not have stood beside him without their shoulders touching.

On all sides of him the plain swept away in the white light of the stars and moon; never had the desire to respond to the wild brethren urged itself upon him more fiercely than now.