Page:The trail of the golden horn.djvu/30

26 course. But he had the north star to guide him. The Northern Lights were throwing out their long glittering streamers. They appeared like vast battalions marching and countermarching across the Arctic sky. Their banners rose, faded, vanished; to reappear, writhing, twisting, curling, and flashing forth in matchless beauty all the colors of the rainbow. Yellow and green, green and yellow, ruby-red and greenish-white, chasing one another, vieing with one another as the great, silent army incessantly retreated and advanced.

Hugo saw all this, and it never failed to arouse in him a feeling of wonder and awe. He watched the stars, too. For years they had been his steady companions on many a weary trail, and he read them like an open book. He saw the belted Orion swinging in its usual place, and the Great Bear dipping close to the horizon. He knew the time by the figures on that vast dial overhead. He peered keenly forward now, and at length he was rewarded by several faint lights glimmering through the darkness. Kynox was just beyond. In a few minutes the outlines of a number of buildings could be dimly discerned. These increased in clearness as he advanced. Ere long one larger than the others loomed up before him. He knew it well, and toward it he eagerly made his way.