Both men's eyes remained open after death. Heidel closed them himself.

They set about the business again, and Heidel did not interrupt when he saw that they were digging four graves. He assisted, and afterward he waited with them. Nor did he have long to wait.

Finishing, he shouldered his pack once more and continued on his way. He did not look back, but in his mind's eye he could see the mounds he had left behind. The obvious, grisly analogy could not be suppressed. His life was the trail. The graves were symbolic of the hundreds--no, probably thousands--of dead that he had left behind. At his touch men died. His breath withered cities. Where his shadow touched sometimes nothing remained.

Yet it was within his power to undo ills. Even now he trudged uphill with this intention. For this he was often known, though the name was only H.

The day seemed to brighten, though he knew it was well into the afternoon. Seeking the answer, he saw that the trees were smaller, the gaps between their leaves greater. The sunlight fell in more places and there were even flowers-- red and purple, bearded and haloed with gold and pale yellow--drifting on the vines the breezes pushed about him. His way grew steeper, but the grasses that had snatched at his ankles were shorter now and fewer small things rushed chittering about him.

After perhaps half an hour's time, he could see farther ahead than at any previous point on his journey. For a hundred meters the way lay clear and bright. When he had traversed this distance he met with the first full gap in the living roof and saw there a huge, pale, green pool, the sky. Within ten minutes, he was walking in the open and was able to look back upon the shifting sea of boughs beneath which he had passed. A quarter mile ahead and above lay what seemed the summit of the hill he now realized himself to be climbing. Small, pale-jade clouds hung above it. Avoiding rocks, he approached.