"There is nothing for it but to take the back trail." Then the strength seemed to melt out of Grenfell, and he sat down limply.
"It was the belief that I should find that lake some day that has kept me on my feet the last eight years," he said.

"Except for that I should have gone under long ago.

Now, it's hardly likely that I shall ever get back here again." He turned and blinked at Weston with half-closed eyes.
"You can't understand.

You have the world before you," he said.
Weston fancied that he could understand in part, at least.

His comrade was an old and frail and friendless man for whom nobody in that country was, as they say there, likely to have any use, and the fact that he probably had himself to blame for it did not make things easier.