TWO ON THE TRAIL (continued 2)

Nell took him by the ears and whispered to him that he must stop and look after David. She was going a very short way, but he must guard the camp. Robin sank down against the boy's side with a sigh. He wanted to go, but he knew his duty. The girl looked to the priming of her pistol, then she stole away alone, into the forest.

She made a circle round the camp, and when she came to her starting-point followed on again in a still wider circle. After that the high rocks forming the gates of the waterfall stopped a complete circle. She turned and went back outside her own track.

It was difficult, because of the roughness, but she persevered, to be rewarded, for quite suddenly she came upon the ashes of a little camp fire. Kneeling down she felt the patch, the ashes were still warm.

The place lay to the north-west of their own camp--that was, on the back track behind them. Whoever made that fire was following the sled pullers most likely and was travelling light himself, for there was no trace of sled runners. Nell sought very anxiously for his trail both to and from the fire, but it was purposely confused--concealed in the shrewdest way. Just here and there Nell saw obvious "spoor" of human passage. Then it was gone.

The fire was very small and round, showing the camp of a "sour-dough," as an experienced hand is called in the north. But no more could she feel certain of. There was another very odd thing. It did not appear that this traveller had found the camp of the fugitives. He had stopped for the night in this place, and presumably gone on before the break of day.

The girl comforted herself with this reflection. It might be a trapper on his own business passing from one district to another, but unconscious of her and David. She would have liked to go back along the river trail to look for his spoor, but time was pressing seriously. As she went "home" with flying feet she cogitated whether it would be wise to tell David, and ended in telling him. After all, they were doing the job in partnership!

She woke him from sound sleep when she got in, and told him while the fire was burning up. He said nothing for a few minutes. Then he made a practical suggestion.

"If we take Robin to that camp fire and start him on the scent, he'll follow it up and be on the man all right."

"But," said Nell firmly, "we are running away from the trapper. What's the sense of going after him?"

David began to laugh, and laughed so much in a silent and suppressed manner that he rolled over. Robin looked at them both with such a puzzled gaze under his frowning forehead that it made them both laugh the more. After that they felt better, and decided to go ahead, thanking God if the man had passed them and gone racing on under a misapprehension. There was a lot of heavy work to do in the portage of the sled and packs, Nell knew they would not gain very much in distance--the pursuer might, of course, get on miles before them.

Snowshoes were very little use at the present, so they slung them on their backs in readiness, and after breakfast made tracks for the lower reach of the river, carrying the bundles of pelts. The stream was winding and very rugged altogether. The first falls were followed by another wild and rocky gorge, where the water must race furiously down in summer time. It was some distance before the two could force a way down to a place that looked like a new start, and plain sailing, as it were, for the fresh road. But they did come to it at last, and the snow was smooth and spotless. No one had been before them, certainly, on the river.

They put the bundles in safety and went back. The way back did not seem so far--it never does, even in a land of roads. The camp was untouched, and again they loaded themselves with as much as they could carry. Finally they returned for the sled and the sleeping bags. Then Robin went with them. Up till then he had been guarding the family property, much against his will, but duty demanded the sacrifice of his feelings.

Then, after a rest and a meal, they started again on the untrodden road. Nor was it very easy going on a fresh trail of softening snow. They made themselves very hot, but they were hopeful and contented, because Nell was sure they would reach the lake that day, and somehow the lake appeared to them a landmark--a great gain--a sort of half-way house! It would not be half-way, hardly a quarter of the way, but at any rate it was a bad quarter, for the farther they went the nearer they must come to friends and human habitations.

It was during this tough bit of the journey that Nell told David about the post-house and the cache, that is to say, the reason before hinted why they had so little food with them. On the other side of the lake which they must soon cross was a small shack. Just one little room with a rusty stove and a bunk or two. It had been set up for the convenience of trappers in the coldest time, and was used by any of them going east to Moose River.

Andrew Lindsay had told his daughter that close to one angle of this hut he had made a cache. That is to say, he had buried in a small pit and covered over invisibly a certain amount of canned food, with tea, tobacco, candles, matches, and such little matters as knives, an axe, and so on. A trapper learns by experience that he may be left with nothing, so, like a squirrel hiding nuts, he makes his cache for a reserve store.

Nell was counting on this; moreover, it had more than once occurred to her that, in case of dangerous pursuit she might cache the money she was carrying, but that would be decided by circumstances.

CHAPTER IX

HOW THE GREAT BULL FLED FOR HIS LIFE

All the afternoon they laboured on and on, and by degrees two things came to pass. The woods thinned, there were open spaces, the banks grew lower and more open. They were coming to the lake.

The other obvious change was in the wind. It had veered to the north and blew bitterly cold, while fine particles of frozen snow began to strike the travellers faster and faster. As it grew dusk the air was freezing hard, and that wind from the north was getting up.

Then, also in a moment, the white expanse of the lake spread before their eyes--dim and shadowy, lost in the distance.

Nell's heart sank a bit at that moment. It was all so fearfully dreary and exposed. The forest they had passed through seemed a friendly shelter beside this! But it had to be faced. The river passed through it and the journey must be taken up again--away over there in the far-away dimness--where the stream poured out, wider, going east to join the Moose River.

"I suppose," said Nell, looking round with carefully assumed indifference, "we'd better camp here. It's getting dark."

"Not much shelter," David suggested. "Hope it isn't going to work up a blizzard."

His sister was sure it was late in the year for a blizzard. She said that, but in her heart she knew that April was an uncertain month always. She stood looking and looking, while the blowing fur tails hid the troubled expression of her face.

"Come along," she said at last, "round by the north bank, we'll go--there," she pointed some distance along to the left with her fur-mittened hand.

David asked why not straight across--it was level and easier.

"Is it because of the trail?" he asked. "The snow will cover that. Just look how it's coming down."

Nell said it was because of the river stream. She was a little afraid of ice bridges, or holes under the snow. The stream in the middle would be swifter than the sides. You never know how the surface freezes, or where the strong stream begins to make its way beneath. The girl thought of all that, because she had been here with her father and he had shown her what to beware of as the spring thaws approached. This was important, while David's mention of their trail was also a point. She decided that they would not go on to the lake, at present. They would follow a more difficult way around the north side and make a camp when they had put some distance between themselves and the place where the river entered the lake.

With this intention then they first did some confusing work. They struck out straight ahead over the snow; then, having gone some distance came back on their own tracks to the starting-place, took off their snowshoes and climbed the bank, lifting the sled over obstacles. It was strenuous work, but it could be done for a yard or two, and all they wanted was to hide their start. Having reached a bare stretch beyond brushwood clumps, Nell went back to obliterate the trail. In this she was helped by the wind, which, blowing harder and harder in icy gusts, whirled the snow round about in eddies, scattering it afresh in finest powdery flakes.

"All the better," said Nell, panting a little as she climbed the slope again. "Now then, Da, 'on, on we go,' as our old spelling book said--next thing is a camp. This blizzardy wind is beastly, but it's helping us all the time."

David agreed as he always did, bravely coming up to the scratch at all times in his sister's steps. All the same, he had never in his life felt worse--that is to say, more exhausted and despondent. The thought of having to set to again and make a camp, and a fire, if it would burn, and then face the night almost unprotected, was not cheering. However, Nell was right about the blizzard; the advantages made up for the misery.

As long as they could they went along the north shore of the lake itself, close to the bank. They returned to it, because of the much easier going, of course, after they had confused the trail by a land tramp of perhaps half a mile. That was awfully hard and could not have continued much longer, as their strength was giving out owing to the obstacles.

Presently, when it became increasingly difficult to see, Nell pulled up at a place where the shore formed some small protection, because the land rose in a slope with trees on the higher part. They could not camp on the ice here, so they landed in a likely place, hopeful of shelter from the snow-laden bushes, and began to make what preparation they could.

To tell the truth, even Nell could have cried at that moment. But there is a great deal in being responsible "boss" of anything! You can't let yourself go if you have real grit, and she had plenty.

They scraped and scraped at the snow till they reached down to the frozen bank and made a sort of barrier. A great deal of it blew back again, but that had to be borne. Fortunately the fire was kind enough to burn--the worst of the storm had not come then--and they were able to get a meal of hot tea and bacon. It made a great difference. Then, protected in a small measure by the upturned sled and the bundles, the bushes, and the heaped up snow, they got ready for "bed." At the last moment Nell did rather a clever thing. She scraped the fire off its first place lower down, making it up again with a good bundle of wood. Then she and David lay down in their bags on the hot, dried ground where the fire had just been built. It answered so well that they both fell asleep at once in spite of the increasing storm.

Nell was very weary indeed. The burden was a growing one, because she had had so little rest in forty-eight hours of strenuous work. Therefore a cry from David close to her ears seemed to ring in her head for hours before she realised that he was shaking her shoulder and calling to her in rather an agitated voice, for him. Then she was awake on the instant. Wide awake and throwing sticks on the dying embers, for the one thing necessary at that instant was obviously a fire.

"It's wolves," David was saying. "But, Nell, they stop up north as a rule, don't they? I say, what a beastly row."

Nell was loading the little Winchester. She heard the "beastly row" very clearly, but did not show agitation.

"They are after something," she said. "Don't you remember once before when we heard them at home Dad said they'll follow some animal that is trying to escape for miles--a hundred miles--any distance till it is exhausted. They are so persistent when they are hungry, I expect it's a deer, poor thing!"

"Bucks are awfully clever at confusing their own trails though," urged David, who hated to think of wolves succeeding, "they'll jump thirty feet sideways bang into bushes to throw those beasts off the scent. I do think they are clever. I say, Nell, there's one good thing!"

"What?"

"Why the wind. It's blowing hard from them to us. That's why we hear them so plainly--don't you see? If it was the other way they'd get scent of us. Jolly thing they can't!"

"It is," said Nell decidedly, inwardly praying that the wolves would stay on the north side, but that depended on which way the hunted creature fled.

The two crouched low under the snow wall, waiting and listening to those howls that had roused David. It was a dreadful sound--the howling of the wolf pack in full cry after its flying prey. The weird shriek of it came down the wind in gusts. Perhaps the horrible brutes were at fault! Nell hoped so. David said so, he was anxious to help the deer if that were possible, but his sister preferred to remain entirely apart! One does not want to get mixed up with wolves on such a night.

The noise of the howling grew louder, and Nell threw a good armful of dead wood on the blaze to rouse a high flame. She and David were standing up gazing anxiously over their snow wall up the slope of the shore, when suddenly they received a shock that was very startling.

Out of the driving whiteness of the blown snow loomed a huge plunging shape. It was lurching down the bank directly on to them--like a nightmare in a very horrid dream--when apparently it saw the fire, and checked. For a moment the two in the camp were aware of amazing antlers and a long distorted face, then the creature swerved with a fine effort, bounded aside with a loud blowing snort, and took to the lake some yards beyond, higher up.

"Did you see--did you see?" David was shaking his sister's arm in excitement.

"Don't, Da, I've got the rifle. Put more wood on the fire, quick. Hark to the others!"

"Poor old chap, he's got a start," said the boy, piling on wood and glancing back up the hill. "I wish you could kill the lot, Nell."

Nell laughed in spite of everything.

"I! Let's hope they won't notice us, if they're hot on the old bull's trail."

The weird howling drew nearer, till the bitter blast of the north wind seemed full of it, and then--sudden as the appearance of the desperate bull moose--shadows flitted over the rise as though they were part of the snowstorm.

Nell fully expected one or more of the wolves to come over the barrier, though she knew the fire would frighten them, but the pack, about eight or ten at the outside, were running close together on the hot scent of the big moose. Perhaps the fire did scare them aside, as it had scared him. The darkness swallowed them, and the fierce long-drawn cry of the howl lessened as the wind caught it. They were gone, over the lake.

When Nell felt Robin's coat she noted that his hackles were stiff and his throat quivering with deep growls. Robin could put up with most of the wild folk--after a fashion--but wolves made him furious! All three of the party sat down again close to the fire, and comforted themselves with hot tea and dried meat.

"Something happens every night," commented David thoughtfully; "this was the queerest. Who'd have thought of a bull moose down here--and wolves!"

"How can we tell how far they'd come," said Nell. "He looked awfully done. Da, his antlers were jolly fine--all of seven feet across. I expect he was an old bull and that they singled him out of the herd and kept him back from the others--that's the way they do."

"I do hope he got away," said the boy again.

Nell hoped so, too, but she didn't think it likely. Wolves are fearfully persistent.

After a bit they went back to bed and actually slept till a faint, faint pink light spread over the flatness of the lake.

The wind was less keen, but it still blew the snow about in eddies, and Nell was very eager to be off while this help was on their side.

She looked back towards the river and the far woods. Nothing showed. They struck camp very quickly indeed, for her hurry was infectious. She felt unsafe out here in the open, for figures show a long way upon clean snow.

They kept to the edge more or less. Not quite the edge, because there is always a good deal of rotten ice under the banks, but within a little of it. It was easier going, and of course Nell was not quite sure where the river ran out of the lake and onward. She longed desperately for that fresh start on the river road. It would be wonderful to have crossed the lake and be actually on the straight track to Moose River.

All day they drove on and on, stopping once or twice in likely places on the banks for a rest and food. This lake was not nearly so large as the Abbitibbi Lake, or several others--it was not so wide. Away over the snow they could see the opposite--the southern--shore. But they could not see the end. It was probably twenty-five miles long from the entrance of the river at the west, to its exit in the east, and that's a long, long way even on snowshoes, when you are on the trail with a sled, even a light sled.

CHAPTER X

THE CAMP ON THE WOLF'S TOOTH ROCKS

The dusk was falling again and the weary travellers were looking eagerly for the right sort of camping ground, when the most startling thing happened.

As the miles were covered a feeling of security was beginning to grow. Why, they could not have explained, except that they were naturally hopeful, even when tired--which was a good thing if you consider the strain to come still. They did not complain of the biting wind, or of the snow that continued to fall at intervals, because it was a help towards safety in their opinion. Certainly it was far more difficult to distinguish objects.

Nell gave a joyful exclamation as the right kind of place loomed just ahead of them--a wooded, rocky arm stretching out into the lake. Had there been water it would, of course, have been a promontory; as it was it offered a screen and some shelter. It was much less exposed and hardly the place that a bull moose would gallop over or wolves be found on. It was altogether promising.

"Here we camp," said Nell, and David dropped his harness, stretching his arms with a sigh of relief.

Leaving the sled they both climbed up the steep and rocky bank, beating a way through snow-covered juniper bushes on to the wooded promontory. Above the lake and sheltered to a great extent, the place seemed ideal to their hopes. David began hacking a clear space with quick strokes of the little axe--a woodman learns that quick tentative stroke in the bitter north, because in the frost his axe blade is liable to fly into a thousand splinters like glass if used as it would be in a warmer climate--a sort of brisk tap, with caution. Nell went down again to the sled to bring up necessaries, for it was plainly labour lost to haul the sled up on to the promontory.

In so doing her attention was drawn to the dog Robin, who was not acting according to his usual rule, which was to lie down and watch while camp was made, waiting for his supper. He moved restlessly about, nose to the ground, this way and that, round, in and out, and presently disappeared among the underwood.

When Nell got up to the top again, laden with sleeping bags, food and utensils, David drew her attention to this.

"Some animal," said Nell; "what a plague! We must look out, Da, it might be a bear."

David thought it couldn't be.

"Bears are still asleep," he said.

"Not when thaws begin," Nell answered decidedly, as she cherished the little flame in the birch bark. "Just a breath of warmer wind and the old things wake up. Dad says you can't always count on them either, because they are so hungry and there's nothing for them to eat--no berries, no roots, no fish, because the streams are not free, no nothing. I hope it isn't a bear. Robin couldn't fight a bear."

"We should have to make polite speeches to it like the Red men do," said David. "Oh, what's the use of bothering when ninety-nine-to-one it's only a chipmunk."

The fire burned up and a cosy glow danced on the bushes that shielded the little open space. The snow water began to bubble in the billy-can. Nell was kneeling on the ground slicing bacon into the pan when from the corner of her eye she caught the movement of an alien shadow. She sprang up with a swift movement in time to see a shape melt backward into the underbrush.

Drawing her revolver the girl was in pursuit on the instant. David followed because she went--he had seen nothing himself. Nell dived ahead with the quick judgment of a woodswoman in choosing her path, and brought up suddenly in utter astonishment within a few yards of the fire.

Motionless before her stood a figure wrapped in the usual Indian blanket, moccasins on the feet, head and arms muffled in the blanket. The only thing that moved was the curious roving glance of the black eyes--absolutely black and shining like a squirrel's.

For an Indian she was pretty, her skin being much lighter in shade than that of the average Redskin girl. After the first shock of being caught she smiled, showing most beautiful teeth.

"Shines-in-the-Night," said Nell, speaking in a mixture of Chippewa and English, "you are very far from the camp of your people. Is it wise?"

"It is wise," answered the girl, and her voice was very low and quite musical. "My brother the Lizard knows, and I also know, that the trapper Little Eyes has a bad heart towards the tall white sister. She has known only his forked tongue. His heart is very black."

"It is black," agreed Nell, "but we are not afraid, because the trail is lost and Little Eyes will try in vain to find it when he goes back to the log house of our father."

The Indian shook her head, her curious, inscrutable eyes full of intelligence.

"My sister is deceived. Little Eyes will not return to the log house." She held up one hand and touched three of the fingers of it with the other hand. "One sun--Little Eyes leaves the camp of my father the Pickerel and comes to the log house. He sees a writing on the door, with fire and powder he blows away the lock, and long time he searches in the house of my sister----"

"I said he would," muttered Nell to David aside.

"Brute!" said the boy.

Shines-in-the-Night glanced from one to the other, then she went on:

"My brother the Lizard has seen these things. I have followed the trail of my sister, while the Lizard went to the Abbitibbi River in the footsteps of Little Eyes. I say that he will not return to the log house. It is empty. He cannot find that which he seeks. Little Eyes has a quick mind, it darts like the head of a snake. He will come across--see----"

Suddenly she went down on one knee and made a little plan with bits of stick for the rivers.

In a flash Nell saw the danger. Finding that the girl and boy had not gone to the shack at Abbitibbi River, the trapper could start at once on a long slanting line to the foot of the lake on which they were now camping. He would argue reasonably that they had followed the course of their river, as the easiest trail, and must cross the lake to follow on down to Moose River. Therefore, the best--the most certain--place to intercept them would be where the river left the lake and went on again through the woods twenty miles to the eastward. He would not take the trouble to chivy them all over the lake, simply because they were quite sure to leave it by the frozen river road, and there, where it was comparatively narrow, he was bound to find the trail.

If he arrived before they did, he would wait, knowing they had not passed. If they went by first he would see the trail and follow close on their heels.

Either way it seemed as though he must catch them.

Poor Nell, very tired, cold, and hungry, felt this blow more than she would have done had she been fresh. She looked at the bits of stick, understanding well how the two rivers ran, side by side, as it were, though so very many miles apart, over a hundred miles.

"But he can't do it in the time," said David. He had been watching the plan also with interested eyes. "Look at the miles he's had to go. First from our shack across to Abbitibbi, then, right away down to the base of the lake. Look at it, Nell, he couldn't do it in the time. Four days!"

Nell said nothing. She was remembering vividly that one strong man alone on snowshoes, travelling light, goes at least three times as fast as they could at the best, with the sled, and the handicap of inexperience on the long trail. After all, David was but twelve, though he was so big and strong, and that long day at the waterfall rocks had been a set-back, while the trapper was a very old hand and used to immense journeys over the snow in the pursuit of his calling.

Shines-in-the-Night stood up again, and made an eloquent gesture of one arm towards the distant southern shore of the lake.

"We shall know," she said, "when the Lizard comes across the snow. I said to him at the ending of the sun on this finger"--she held up her fourth finger--"the tall white sister will rest and make camp on the rock that is like a wolf's tooth. You shall come across and tell me, and our hearts shall be like the heart of the fox that is not deceived. And now let my sister eat and rest, for who shall say how soon she must take the trail?"

"Oh, I say," ejaculated David, "I thought we were in for a decent spell to-night." Then glancing at Nell he pulled himself together and added, "It's awfully jolly of Shines-in-the-Night to take such a lot of trouble."

"My sister's heart is very good towards us," said Nell gently. "She is brave as the cow-moose and kind as the wood-dove in summer. It is well for us, and we will not forget. Let her come and eat with us now, that when the Lizard comes we may be strong, if there is a long trail to go without sleep or rest."

So it came to pass that in a few minutes the three were resting at the camp fire, making a good meal, and shortly after that David was sound asleep. Then Nell, sleeping as she had not done for many nights, because of the sense of security given her by the presence of the Redskin girl who sat by the fire wrapped in her blanket, feeding the flame at intervals and listening with the acuteness of sense that gave her hearing and instinct like an animal.

About midnight both the girl and the dog raised their heads to listen, and two minutes after they left the camp with movements noiseless as a musk-rat and went down to the edge of the lake. The Lizard came back up the bank with them. He did not say he was exhausted, or even tired, as a boy of any Western nation would have done; it would have been quite beneath the dignity of the son of a "brave" to make a complaint. He ate the food his sister gave to him, offering bits to Robin--the "ninnymoosh"--and he answered the questions she asked him in their own musical tongue, in low tones and few words.

Then Shines-in-the-Night shook Nell gently by one shoulder, and the silent little camp was roused to busy action all in a moment.

The Lizard had brought rather staggering news. So much so that Nell felt a sinking at the heart. Her spirit rose to meet it directly after, but that required some pluck.

It appeared that the Indians were right. Stenson had followed the plan they had prophesied and was, even at that moment, camped on the other shore of the lake, the southern shore opposite. Nor was he alone. Another trapper was with him, though, of course, the Lizard could not tell his name.

Then the boy said something to Shines-in-the-Night, and she passed it on to Nell.

"My brother the Lizard has seen the tall white man--the father of my sister. He is not sick, but he halts on one knee where the catamount bit him. He cannot yet go on the long trail. He is not troubled, because Little Eyes has spoken to him with a forked tongue and told him that my sister is well and content with a message."

"Ah," murmured David, with meaning, "just what we said, Nell! Well, of all the stinkers! But it's a jolly good thing that Dad's all right, anyway."

Nell agreed vaguely. She was thinking of the money tied round her waist! Whatever happened she would save her father's earnings, his years of work and labour, but certainly they were in rather a tight corner. Most people would have called it a hopeless one.

She looked at Shines-in-the-Night, who was two years older than herself and had all the shrewd cunning and knowledge of the wild bred in her by her Redskin forefathers. Nor did the Indian girl fail at this crisis. All the time she had been sitting by the fire while the white wanderers slept, she had been thinking out a plan, and it was formed in her mind, complete and practical in every detail.

Now she explained it.

CHAPTER XI

THE HUNTERS

The southern shore of the lake was flat and open. Down from far-distant hills the land sloped to the water, and for miles there were no trees.

From the hills, then, came two men travelling light, with just a bundle, each made up of a sleeping blanket and food enough for a few days. They came at a great pace on their long snowshoes, giving a kick forward with each foot and then pressing down on the heel so that the great torpedo-shaped shoe slid forward over the snow almost as fast as a skate might on ice. They were well used to this going, and not being impeded by sled, dogs, or goods there was nothing to keep them back.

They came down to the shore about the hour of dusk, lighted a very small fire of driftwood from the river edge and boiled some tea in a billy-can. After they had eaten some deer-meat they began to smoke. Not till then did they speak at all. They knew what they were there for and neither had the least doubt that they would easily catch the two children, relieve them of the money, and make off with it.

Stenson was the leader. The other was a big, heavy, stupid man--Barry Jukes. They had lived a hard life in the wilderness and had small conscience about taking some hundreds of dollars when the chance came their way. All the trappers believed that Lindsay had a large sum of money hidden in his shack. As long as he could take care of it himself he was not interfered with, but the accident of the catamount's bite had put an idea into the quicker, more cunning brain of Stenson--that was, to get the girl out of the log house on that plea, and then search it. To break in was a small matter, because he could easily pretend entire ignorance, and the blame would be laid at the door of some wandering Redskins, who certainly did steal at times.

He had made out the injury much worse than it really was, of course, to work on Nell's fears. He had come back much sooner than he said he would in case she took it into her head to leave, and she would surely have been caught at once had it not been for the Lizard's information that night. Because of that the two had given him the slip, but he was not much disturbed really.

He had proceeded to pick up their trail with the skill of long practice, and followed it down to the stream. They had a sled. That would delay them, he knew. Nor did he much believe in the powers of the two young Lindsays to keep up on the long trail without failing.

Therefore he coolly broke into the shack and searched it thoroughly. He tried the log floor, and presently found the joins in the wood. He prised up the log, saw the empty hole and understood what must have been hidden there. The conclusion he drew was, either that Nell had taken the money to her father at the Abbitibbi hills, where his shack was, or she had gone away with it down river. In either case he felt so entirely certain of overtaking her that he stayed at the log house to make a good meal, and fill his pockets with potatoes, which were very precious at the end of the winter when no green food was available.

Then he started away along the ridges to his own distant shack, his plan being to make sure whether or no the flying pair had gone that way. They could go some distance by stream, leaving it lower down, but the way he took was the shortest and hardest. If they did not come within a reasonable time he would cut across to the lower end of the lake and look for their trail there. He did not doubt he should find it.

Now we know that he did not find the travellers anywhere near the Abbitibbi, because they never went that way. But he was right enough in his calculation about the lake, and it was perhaps curious that Nell had not thought of that possibility. Had the brother and sister not been delayed by the difficulties at the rapids and the waterfall rocks they would have got ahead of the pursuers and passed the outlet of the river before they reached the lake. As it was, the two parties were opposite each other, but luckily the trappers did not know!

Jukes grunted assents to the other man's suggestions. It was all plain-sailing to him. They would take the money from the girl and decamp. Not return to their own shack, but divide the loot equally between them and disappear into the northern wilderness.

One name was as good as another to such men. They were sick of trapping and wanted money for a mining outfit. The summer was coming and all they had to do was to take the long trail up into the North-West Territory and over to Alaska. No one would ever find them, they thought. Nor did they propose to harm the girl if they could get the money without doing so, because the police found men at the very ends of the earth--when they really meant to.

This was the position as they sat and smoked, saying a few words now and then. Stenson had explained his plan. Jukes made no objection. At present there was nothing to do but sleep. It was too dark to do any good looking for a trail. They rolled themselves in their blankets and slept soundly, for they had come many miles.

They woke, of course, in the misty greyness before dawn, and presently saw the sun come up shedding a faint pink flush ahead. It was warmer. There was a soft air from the south and a glisten of wet on the snow. This did not please the men, because it would make the trail heavy, but it did not matter much, because the same difficulty would handicap the two who fled, especially as they were burdened by a sled. Breakfast did not take long, and they were soon ready to start.

Then Jan Stenson thought of crossing the lake straight across, to find out if the trail ran down it from end to end as the course to the river would lead. The two men launched themselves on to the snowy surface, and went away in a slanting direction towards the upper end. They must cross right over to intercept the track, if track there was. It was not so very far, especially with smooth going, the lake being hardly more than two miles broad, though it might be twenty-five long.

Three-quarters of the way across, Stenson suddenly gave a hoarse chuckle of triumph.

"Oh ho! So the quarry is on the trail!"

Jukes looked, too. They both stood still, gazing back along a very distinctly marked trail. Without further remark they tracked it backward for some little distance; it ran away over the snow towards the beginning of the lake, as far as they could see.

Snowshoes first, not a man's size. Sled runners, cutting rather deep because the snow was softening. Then snowshoes again, heavier in print.

Stenson was triumphant. He was always proud of his shrewdness and here was a case in point.

"Was I right--haw?" he demanded, and Jukes grunted assent. "Little Eyes" was certainly quite right in his calculation.

Having seen, then, that the trail ran from the lake head and was making eastward, the thing to be done was to follow it. Nothing could be plainer. It had been made last night, or even that morning early. Why, the racing pair could be but a little way ahead, it would be child's play to catch them! That was obvious.

Jan Stenson was very pleased with himself. He boasted about his own cleverness to Jukes as they took up the trail and followed on down the lake. For several miles they went and then found the trail bore away towards the left, to the northern shore. Still following on, they presently came to the rocky promontory and found here evidence of movements, finally of a dead fire and a camp.

Stenson announced that the pair had come down from the head of the lake on the previous evening and camped here. They must have gone on this morning, probably about the same time that the pursuers broke camp on the southern shore.

It was a hopeless position for the fugitives, said Jan Stenson.

After a very little while taken up in prospecting around this place, the hunters took up the trail again and followed at a steady, rapid pace.

The northern shore began to grow more wooded, and after a bit the end of the lake came in view and a belt of trees, thick forest again where the river left the lake and started on its way to join the great wide stream of Moose River a long way farther east.

It was just about here that Jukes declared he saw something on the snow, fleeing towards the mouth of the river. Stenson had not quite such good eyes, but he thought it likely enough there was someone just ahead, so they increased their efforts. The trail was now fresh and very distinct. Two pair of snowshoes and the sled runners. Because of the mildness in the air the snow was soft. The sun shone over the dazzling world everywhere, and the trees on the shore dripped.

When the two men came to the river head there was a sound of trickling water here and there, and the edges of the snow at the banks were mushy and rotten. Underneath was the force of the stream within banks, not like the broad and rather shallow lake. Before long the ice would heave up as the water swelled, then it would burst and go down river in a jumbled mass. The course of the stream turned in a curve through the forest and the trail was lost round this. On pressed the two men, and when they had passed this curve they saw before them a straight vista of perhaps half a mile, for in that clear atmosphere distance is shortened.

At the far end of it were moving figures, a little group going ahead at a good pace. Considering the distance it was not easy to tell about the persons in the group, but the low shape on the snow was plainly a sled.

On raced the two men, Stenson boasting still more about his clever calculation. He was very fond of boasting at all times. Jukes listened stolidly; he wanted the money, that was his point of view.

In another ten minutes it became obvious that there were two figures. A taller behind and a short one in front, bending forward to pull as hard as possible. The little sled ran smoothly between, but it was hard going, because of the soft trail. Stenson made out that Nell Lindsay was pushing behind, and the boy in harness. He had quite forgotten about the dog.

Presently they saw the girl pause and look round. It seemed that she saw them and spoke to the boy, who glanced round also. Then they went on as before.

Stenson shouted. He and Jukes were not close enough to see the figures quite distinctly, and he was not inclined to go farther on this trail. It would be better to get the money--there was no question whatever about the girl giving up the money, she would see the necessity of that--and start away northwards at once, this trail was leading them in the wrong direction.

After he had shouted several times the little party in front drew up and stood still, waiting; there was something in their attitudes that gave Stenson his first "jolt," as he would have called a shock of surprise. In five minutes it was more than a "jolt," it was astonishment mixed with exasperation.

He and Jukes saw as soon as they came within speaking distance, a Redskin girl, rather tall, dressed in the usual winter dress of the Indians, which was not very different from his own. With her was a shortish boy, and between them was a hand sled laden with pelts. That was all.

The girl looked at him with the half shy, inscrutable gaze of a Redskin girl. Vaguely he remembered to have seen her, or someone like her. He demanded her name and business.

"Shines-in-the-Night, daughter of Ogâ the Pickerel," she answered in her own tongue. "I and my brother the Lizard carry pelts across to New Brunswick House by the farther river."

It was a deadlock! The trail, he questioned her of the way she'd come, was from the upper stream. It was perfectly simple, because the Chippewas were camped in the forest beyond Lindsay's log house. The trail was hers, then, not Nell's! Stenson could have killed these two in his fury, but he dared not; the Chippewa Chief would have killed him in return.

CHAPTER XII

THE FLIGHT CONTINUES

By this time it is understood what the plan was that Shines-in-the-Night put before Nell, when the Lizard brought news of the pursuers' nearness.

It was a wonderfully complete plan, because it included the making of a trail anew from the head of the lake and down the centre to the outlet of the river. The shrewd mind of the Redskin girl saw the necessity of this, because Stenson would not have been satisfied with a trail that began at the Wolf's Tooth Rocks. He would, of course, want to know by what track the fugitives reached it. The way they had really come the afternoon before, close to the bank, was partly obliterated by the thaw and partly defaced by the Lizard, who went back on it for some little distance till he had destroyed the connection with the camp on the rock.

At first Nell refused to agree, but Shines-in-the-Night made it quite plain that she and the Lizard would be in no danger.

"Great Chief Ogâ the Pickerel," she said impressively. "Once Little Eyes do him bad turn never forgive. Him know that. All time Ogâ finish Little Eyes. Police no matter at all then."

It was true. Nell knew that the Red men never forgive an injury and never forget a friend. If Stenson had killed the girl, no length of time, no number of years or miles of distance would save him in the end from the vengeance of Ogâ.

That made a great deal of difference. She could not have agreed to the plan if she had believed it would endanger the girl's life.

So she and David accepted the generous offer and one curious thing happened in connection with this.

When it was settled, she said:

"You are very good to us, Shines-in-the-Night. Your heart is very warm and kind. We have not thanks enough to give you."

"The tall white sister has given me a great gift," answered the Indian; "it lies on my heart and keeps it warm towards her. So that no deed is too much for me."

She put her hand within the leather shirt that she wore under her blanket, and drew out, almost reverently, the Christmas card that Nell had sent her. A hole had been made at one corner, and a deer's tendon, such as Indian women sew with, was passed through the hole, thus hanging the card round her neck. As she brought it out, the faint, delicate scent from the sachet pervaded the air and made Robin lift his muzzle from his paws and wrinkle his nose with little tentative sniffs.

To Shines-in-the-Night this card was the most wonderful and beautiful thing she had ever seen. She believed it to be a miracle, too, a charm of great power, and she knew that the possession of it would give her a sort of status of honour above the other girls and women of the Chippewas.

Nell knew the Indians, but even she was surprised at the immense satisfaction this card had given. Just at a critical moment she bound this girl to her service with a bond almost unbreakable. It was a strange thing.

After that the action proceeded swiftly.

The time being little beyond midnight they had some hours before the camp on the south shore would wake. Nell and David took a small compact bundle each, simply the sleeping bag, a billy-can, a little tea and pemmican, the object being to travel as light as possible and cover as much ground as they could in the shortest time. The Indians gave Nell careful and distinct directions about her journey. She was not to touch on the lake, but to go along the north side of it through the woods and cut across the bend of the river on the land. In this way she was to travel quite ten miles of the stream, but always keeping in the woods. After that it would be safe for her to take to the course of the ice, they all thought, but it might depend on circumstances. About that time, too, she would reach the log house--the bunk house run up for travellers, where Andrew Lindsay had made a cache. Nell was depending rather on that for enough food to keep on with. Haste being her one object, it was not possible to set a wire for a chance rabbit, and concealment being necessary, they could not fire a gun unless absolutely forced to do so in self-defence. A shot would ring far in the silent snow-laden woods.

So that was the plan mapped out by the two girls, and very soon after that they parted, Nell and David going off east through the scattered woods of the north shore, the Lizard and his sister going back west, also on the shore, and dragging the sled, until they arrived at a place from which it seemed safe to take to the lake again and come down the centre of it as described, making the trail that was to mislead the pursuers.

All those long hours till the grey of morning began to make the trees ghostlike, brother and sister went on and on with Robin. At first they felt the pleasure of going ahead without the drag of the sled, but about six o'clock they were very tired, and Nell decreed a short rest, tea, and a feed. They made a small round fire with great care, boiled some snow water for tea, ate their dried meat and gave Robin a bit of the dried fish they carried for him. No bacon. They must wait for the cache.

Then, rested somewhat, they went on again. They had reached the river outlet and were cutting across that part round which its course wound. This was about the time when Stenson was coming down the lake hot on the trail of the Indians, who were certainly ten miles behind Nell, if not more.

David was beginning to think it was all right again. He depended greatly on the Indian girl's ruse, but Nell was very anxious. She could feel that money at her waist every time she moved, and the responsibility was a burden. She had taken upon herself to remove it from the hiding-place, and she had a feeling that she owed it to her father now to carry her plan through, whatever it cost.

With this dread upon her she put off taking to the river as long as they could get on by land. But it was harder, slower going--the shoes caught in snags and roots unless they moved with greatest care, and a long swing was difficult.

About noon, and after another rest, Nell declared she'd risk it. They unstrapped their snowshoes, broke a way through the undergrowth and found the river again--wider, snow-covered for the most part, smooth going.

They had not come all this way without seeing a forest creature or two--a rabbit, a mink that was chasing it just as stoats do in England. The rabbit escaped, thanks to Robin's interference, but the mink did also.

The climb down the bank brought them up against the land entrance of a musk-rat's nest, a big heap of sticks and rubbish that looked so careless, but was so carefully made. They knew that down away under the ice was a water entrance also, and between the two entrances a nest most beautifully safe and dry which the mink was always trying to get at.

Nell and David knew of these things and had often seen them, but to-day was no time to wait and watch. Once on the water--or rather on the snow-covered ice--they strapped on their shoes and went on again at a fine pace, considering the thaw, which is most certainly a drawback if you want to race.

They had counted on reaching the bunk house that night, but they did not reach it, and they were faced by the inevitable night in the snow with no food but the tea and dwindling pemmican. It was not quite so cold, but that was small gain when the wetness was taken into account. Dripping trees and wet snow!

They would not make a sound of complaint, either of them, though they were dizzy with weariness and stiff in every muscle. They scraped a tiny camp free of snow, made a fire with bits of stick and dead leaves, boiled their water almost mechanically, and after eating all they dared of the food remaining, crawled into their bags and were asleep in a few seconds, the two, with the dog between them. So soundly they slept that no stir among the wild creatures on the banks roused them, nor did the faint ceaseless trickle of tiny streams running into the river.

The hardest part was waking in the morning to start on again in the raw chill of the thaw at dawn. No sun, of course. Grey mist, shadows, and slush!

"Never mind," said Nell, answering their thoughts, because neither had spoken, "we must reach the bunk house and the cache to-day. Then we'll have a feast and a rest, and a fire in the stove; they always keep the fire laid--we shall have to do it for the next that comes along when we go."

David seized on Robin in a sort of paroxysm of satisfaction. They rolled about on the ground together, and presently got up very cheerful.

"Da, you're a brick," said Nell, measuring out tea. "I say, we are short. That's the last. And only this to eat! Pity we can't eat Rob's fish, but we can't; it's like wood."

They made fun of the poor meal, the slush, the stiffness, and the long miles ahead.

"Come on," said the girl, and they had started before the sun was up.

All the morning they kept on, and then Nell began to recognise certain landmarks her father had spoken of at different times. The first of these was the narrowing of the river into a sort of gorge, the sides of which were steep, rocky, and wooded. David said it was a good thing they had no sled; that was the "bright side" certainly. But they had themselves, and it meant a landing, a severe climb and a struggle through a regular maze of undergrowth. They had to use the little axe, which they had held to as a necessity and carried strapped to David's back. Bad as it was, landing was the only way, because the river went down the gorge in rapids, and the strong stream had begun to force tiny rivulets over the snow.

About the middle of the afternoon, when David was very silent and Nell had taken to describing the bunk house, which she declared was close by, Robin left them. He had become restless a little while back, following up some trail with persistence, and now he disappeared altogether.

"Never mind," said Nell. It was rather a favourite expression of hers, always meaning really "never say die!" "He can't possibly lose us, even if we lose him."

"I say, Nell, look at the big rocks and the jolly hiding holes up there." David waved a hand towards a sort of fortress above them. "If the bunk house turns out to be a frost we'd better come back here and hide. It would be jolly safe."

"Start housekeeping in a cave! All right, but what shall we eat? Robin? Or the foxes that live up there? We haven't even got a snare."

As they talked they came into a sort of rough track leading from the heights down to the river. The wood was less dense, and Nell suddenly checked.

"Da! Oh, Da! See--we are all right! I'd give three cheers only we'd better not! There's the bunk house, up on the bank above the stream in that bit of open--see!"

They both stood still, gazing their fill as it were. This meant rest, warmth, a safe night, food, and in the minds of both a feeling that the worst was over.

David made extravagant signs of joy--silent signs. Nell's face, which had been looking very pinched and years older than the fifteen she counted, seemed to plump out suddenly into roundness. The eyes of the two met with a sort of mutual congratulation, then their attention was distracted by a growl, and both looked to see the meaning of the sound.

Not far from them and on higher ground among the rocks stood a black bear. His little red eyes were fixed on them with a sort of malevolent irritation. He was very thin, a mere loose hide over bones, and the two knew that he had waked from his winter sleep in the caves and come out, desperately hungry, to find nothing to eat, and rather a comfortless world. He was annoyed.

CHAPTER XIII

A RACE FOR LIFE

Now any hunter of the great North-West Territory will tell you that the only animal, perhaps, that no man can ever count on is a bear.

The big white polar bear and the grizzly of the Rocky Mountains are always savage, most horribly dangerous. But the black and brown bears will seldom interfere with man; never, unless wounded, or with cubs, when there is plenty of food about. The safest time for bears is perhaps in the autumn, when their cubs are growing up and they have quantities of berries, honey, and such food to eat.

Now Nell knew all this very well. She and David had often seen bears. She had no fear of them, at the same time uncertainty remained. And it was a bad time of year!

This particular bear had been asleep in the cave above. He had waked up with the ice still covering the fish, and small animals mostly slain by the foxes. He was probably turning over dead wood logs to hunt for beetles and slugs, but that is a poor meal to go on, after about five months' fast, and he was in a very irritable mood.

Slowly he raised himself on his haunches and sat up. Nell would have liked to stand still and watch him, but felt it would not do. She moved away, quicker and quicker, but trying to do it in an unaggressive way.

"Good thing we haven't got the shoes on," she said to David, making talk, as it were, with one eye on the big black bear.

"Why?" asked the boy, shifting his into an easier position where they were slung across his shoulder.

"Because I think we shall have to run for it."

"Oh no!"

"Oh yes," said Nell; "he's in a bad temper. What a nuisance!"

"Can't we shoot him?" suggested David, as they moved on with increasing speed.

"Shoot! My dear boy, with automatics! He wouldn't mind much unless we shot his eye out, and then he'd be deadly! Wish I'd brought the little rifle, but I thought it was safer with the pelts on the sled, it's so heavy to carry. You want something pretty strong to stop a bear. Dad says their skins are so thick. Bother it, he's coming. Run, Da, and don't tumble over the roots, whatever you do. Remember the bunk house is good and close. We'll get there."

"Where's that donkey Robin?" muttered David, but Nell did not answer; she was intent on this very tiresome adventure. It was fairly plain that the dog had found the bear trail and followed it to the cave. No doubt he was hunting up there among the rocks, and in a way she was not anxious for him to come till this was over, because a dog has small chance with a bear if it comes to fighting at close quarters. People have an idea that a bear kills by hugging, and will always squeeze his enemy to death, whereas the astonishing weapon it uses is the lightning swiftness of its strike. A bear strikes with his fore-paw--which is armed with terrible rending claw--as quickly as a snake darts, and he can break the neck of a moose or a buffalo with one smack. Nell knew all about this and she did not want Robin to come to close quarters, therefore she would not whistle, but ran on, David keeping up with her, faster and faster.

Now these two were very swift of foot, but they had been greatly tried for a good many days and nights, they were hungry and a bit spent, for it was afternoon; lastly, they were cumbered with their packs and shoes. They were handicapped, but fortunately for them so also was the bear, for he, too, was not at his best.

A certain great writer says that an elephant does not seem to be made for speed, but if he wanted to catch an express train he would probably catch it. A bear, too, does not look as though he could run, but he can, very fast indeed, and it took all the running those two could manage to keep ahead. Nell's anxiety was David chiefly. Could he hold out?

Fortunately it was all downhill, and they were very surefooted with long practice of running over rough ground. The bear came shambling on behind, grunting with anger.

"Don't look round, Da," ordered Nell sharply, "you'll trip up! Look where you're going! The bunk house is quite close now."

David did as he was told, knowing she was right about the tripping. A stumble would be death. Just where you put your feet mattered enormously at that moment. The bunk house was close--which was comforting.

What he did not realise, and Nell wanted to keep from him, was that the bear was gaining. Every time she sent a glancing look over her shoulder he was a little nearer. She measured the distance to the bunk house anxiously. It was touch and go; she would not admit to herself that it could not be done. What was the distance? Fifty yards, forty? Less?

And at that moment David went headlong over a bunch of snags half hidden by snow. He was looking round to see what Nell was looking at. Just as anybody might. He wanted to see what she thought and felt, because he realised great danger.

Nell sprang to him. He was on his feet in less time than it takes to tell about it, but the bear had gained. The girl glanced once at him and her soul sickened. His red mouth was open and his little pig-like eyes were full of mad rage, even the horrid smell of his rusty coat came to her on the clean air.

"Run, Da," she said, keeping her voice level, "run! We shall do it," but she was loosening her pistol in its pocket and getting ready for the stand that must come directly.

On the instant she felt a stab of dread, from behind came a sudden bell-like bay--the note of Robin on a scent in full cry.

He had been hunting round about the dens in the rocks and hit on the bear's fresh tracks. It was a beautiful sound, that deep note of the big hound, and to Nell it meant rescue, she believed. One glance she took at the wood behind. Up on the slope she saw the black shape of Robin, nose to ground, racing down on the track of the bear--and his mistress.

He was galloping, tail high, heavy ears drooped forward. Again he gave out his deep bay.

The bear checked his speed, wavered, and then came on again, but without the terrible intentness of his previous attack. Being a wild creature he was aware of danger. Something was coming!

Nell increased her speed, if that were possible, and heartened her brother with a joyous cry:

"On, on, Da--let's get the door open, and then call Robin in. He mustn't fight the bear."

The difficulty of opening the door with the bear at her elbow, so to speak, had been the haunting terror. One couldn't do it. There would be no time.

She and David raced down to the door, just as the bear turned to deal with this swift black shape that leaped round him in the snow, keeping just out of reach of his death-dealing forearm.

"Oh, the key, the key--it's locked!" cried Nell rather desperately. "Oh, Da! Where did Dad say----" She tried to think. David was absorbed in watching Robin's assault on the bear, which was sitting up again, making swift smacks at the illusive black attacker.

"Well done--go it, Robin!"

"Oh, don't, he'll be killed," Nell expostulated in an agonised voice, while her eyes travelled eagerly round the door frame, and she shook the solid latch.

"He won't be killed. He's too quick," said the boy triumphantly. "Key? Oh, there it is on a nail under the eave. I say, Nell, look at Rob! He's a right smart one!"

It was true. Rob was tormenting the bear with great cleverness, but Nell was far more intent on getting into safety, and probably few people have experienced a warmer sense of relief than she did when she opened the door of the bunk house.

Not much of a place, but the relief!

She glanced round with a satisfied look, and saw four bunks--like the berths of a ship--on one side, a rusty stove laid ready for lighting, as the custom is the outgoing traveller must lay the fire for the one who arrives wet and chilled, a pile of chopped wood, and a rough cupboard. Besides that a heavily made bench and a table. But the joy of it! Nell could have danced round that very rough table in spite of her weary legs, but there was Robin to capture and a furious bear outside.

After that look round she rushed out again and whistled to the dog. Then she called. Robin was very loath to leave the great black brute, out of whose reach he kept for the time being.

He came at Nell's call reluctantly. The bear came, too, but with more caution as he was not sure how much he liked the log house.

Then the heavy door was slammed and locked, and the three sat down and breathed hard amid bursts of laughter. Robin laughed, too, as dogs do, his lips lifted over his teeth. His eyes said:

"What a spree, wasn't it?" and he laid a heavy paw on Nell's knee.

She stroked his black silky head with a hand that shook just a little.

"If it hadn't been for Rob, Da, you'd have been--well, it was touch and go when you fell over that root."

"Rotten thing!" said David cheerfully. "But you know it's not so easy to run for your life carrying a mass of things, and the ground all tangled up under the snow. Well, here we are! I say, how jolly! Nell, what will the old brute do?"

"Go away, presently," answered his sister as she kneeled to light the stove. "Now, then, first off with the moccasins and have our dry stockings, then we'll have a real decent supper. Da, put the fur bags in the bunks and bring those bunk blankets near the stove; we'll have it all hot and dry."

The first thing that happened after that was a discovery, and not a pleasant one either. There was a little food in the cupboard--tea and cocoa in tins, flour, and tobacco, and a small bit of bacon frozen hard. It was obviously the cache of some trapper who had passed here on his way down to Moose River, and as he would depend on it when he returned probably, they were in honour bound either to leave it alone, or put back what they took. Nell remembered with a sudden shock of dismay that Andrew Lindsay's cache was outside. He had described the place at the corner of the shack. Not trusting some of the trappers--with good reason--he had made a cache of his own. That would have been quite all right if the bear had not been outside.

They had to laugh and be thankful for the small supply in the cupboard. In the morning, or late that night perhaps, they would dig for "Dad's cache" and put back what they had used--also have another supper and a good breakfast.

They gave Robin his last piece of fish, and at the same moment remembered that it was not possible to make tea without water, or get water without snow, and all the snow was outside!

Long they waited and listened, their only comfort being the warmth of the fire. They were very patient, as people learn to be who live hardly and have to make, get, and do everything for themselves by the work of their own wits and fingers. It is not an easy life, but it teaches you a lot which is never wasted.

Presently, from the little window, glazed with parchment, they caught a sight of the bear sitting up holding in his arms a piece of logwood, which he seemed to be licking--for insects probably.

"Oh, poor old thing!" said Nell joyfully, and she rushed to the door with her billy-can.

Very soon after the smell of hot tea and baking bread made the log house feel like home.

CHAPTER XIV

RIFLE SHOTS!

In spite of insufficient supper, a horrible trial when you are extremely hungry, it is doubtful if ever two people slept sounder than these travellers. The dry bunks and blankets, with the warm fur bags, made beds for a king. The hot tea and hot heavy bread, made with flour and water, were warming, and satisfying, too, with the bit of bacon. They were too tired to worry about the bear, which came back and prowled round the shack when the warm smell of food came out of the pipe that served as a chimney. Bears love bacon, which is why the great traps laid for them--drop traps--are nearly always baited with lumps of bacon or pork.

How soon he went away they did not know, for they were asleep, and they slept for ten hours almost without moving, and woke up to daylight filtering in through the parchment pane, and a cold stove.

They got up with reluctance, in spite of hunger. David would have preferred to stay where he was all day, and argued about it in a disgraceful manner, Nell said. She opened the door and there, close by, was the wide river, the white road leading to safety and civilisation.

Then the sun came up, hot and bright, and the snow sparkled in millions of dripping jewels.

"Come out and dig for breakfast," said Nell, "or will you do the stove while I dig?"

"Look out for the bear," answered David sleepily, "probably he's waiting round the corner."

But he wasn't. All was clear, and presently the two travellers were busy as bees digging for the cache by Nell's recollection of its position. Fortunately the ground was much softer, because of the thaw and the sun, while the cache itself was only just below the surface and covered chiefly by stones and rubbish. This was the usual way. Men did not have time or inclination to make deep pits, they just concealed the package from man and beast till they should come by again and need the goods.

The parcel was carefully tied up in dressed hide, so that the leather was soft. Tea, sugar, baking powder, and flour, beans and bacon. The latter was rather rusty, certainly, but what is that when you are hungry! Probably it had been well frozen and was hardly thawed yet. Nell took it all indoors and smoothed the place over. They had been obliged to dig with the axe. They had nothing else, but it was not good for the blade!

Her plan was to eat well and carry on the rest, after putting back the little store in the cupboard. They would surely want it for the journey still ahead. She would divide the weight into two parcels wrapped in the skin.

Nell's mind was fairly at ease. If she had realised it, the reason of that was chiefly the warmth, the long, restful sleep, and the sunshine. Things look so different in different circumstances and nervous dread often comes with weariness and cold. She believed the danger was over and the journey on from now would be easy. It was not so very far, she reasoned, and the best of all was that every mile now might bring them to possible habitations, to farms even. They were coming down into the haunts of men at last. That meant safety.

Of course, all this work--digging up and smoothing down--then the stove lighting and wood collecting, then the comfortable breakfast on a table, with the water boiling hard by on the warm stove, all took time. Time, too, was taken up in dividing the food into proper shares for carrying away and leaving. It was at this stage that David suddenly made the proposition which undermined the plan for the day already settled.

He was leaning against the doorway, looking out at the sun on the river, playing with Robin, just as though they were at home up in the hills, left so far behind.

"I say, Nell, why do you want to go to-day?"

Nell stopped in her work of putting back the cache in the cupboard.

"But, Da, we ought to!"

"Why ought? We are perfectly safe now. It will only make a few hours' difference."

"We can't be sure of that. How about Stenson? We don't know where he is. He won't give up."

"He will. Sure as fate he'll catch the Redskins and the sled. He'll believe he has followed a false trail all through and he'll give up. Now just think, Nell, why on earth should he come on this way. He was bound to find them, and there you are! Why should he keep on coming this way with no trail to follow?"

It was true. Quite true and reasonable. It was most unlikely that Stenson should go on searching for a different trail over miles and miles of country when he had found the end of the trail made--as he thought--by the young Lindsays. Where would he look? It was fair and reasonable to conclude that he would be baffled by the young Indians and go back to Abbitibbi. The plan propounded and carried out by Shines-in-the-Night was a very sound one. She would go her way, across to the other river which ran down to the Moose about parallel with this one, only some fifty miles of woods between the two streams. Stenson might follow her, to see what she would do, but he had no means of picking up the trail of the Lindsays.

All these thoughts, for and against, rose and sank in the girl's mind. There was really no reason why they should not take a very necessary rest for this one day and start at dawn on the following morning, but instinctively she felt it was dangerous. David said, "But why? But why, Nell?" twice. She had no very definite reason to answer with. Only a feeling.

Of course she wanted to stop; who would not after such a strain? The shack was luxury. They really did need the rest, and in a way there was a good deal to do getting themselves clean, tidy, and ship-shape for the journey to come.

In the end David won. Nell laughed, gave in, and began to make baking-powder bread with the new materials, stirring it in the billy-can with a stick. You can use billy-cans for so many things when you have to!

"On one condition," she said, "that we go to bed as soon as the sun goes down and get off really early, about four o'clock, so we can start before daybreak."

David promised joyfully. Whatever he felt in the morning would be another pair of shoes! He went off down to the river and came back to say the thaw was jolly well getting a move on things! The ice was shifting up the banks. In some places there was water as well as melted snow on its surface.

"Look out for bridge ice, Nell, to-morrow," he said, as he sat down to the table. "I do believe it's going out in a few days. Rather early this year, isn't it?"

Nell said it was warmer down here than up in the hills. There was a much greater force of water underneath, too, here than up at the source of the stream, naturally. And, after all, it was April!

"Once it begins, it always goes so quickly," she said. "If it will last for us, just two whole days more--we ought to get somewhere safe, Da, in that time."

"We shall," said David with conviction, and his sister put away from her the queer nervous feeling that would not let her mind rest entirely.

A great part of that afternoon they lay still in their bunks, talking at intervals, while Robin dozed by the fire. As it happened, this was a very good thing for all three! The odd jobs were done. All was ready, the wood to fill the stove with in the morning, and the packets.

About sundown they had a meal, and after that the grey dusk began to creep over everything. Soft, still shadow.

"Now bed," said Nell; "we've got no candles and we must be up about four."

The words were hardly finished when a gun-shot rang out sharp on the silence.

Nell started as though she had been hit, because her mind was still strained.

"It may be anybody," said David. Robin growled. Nell opened the door and listened.

From the wood at the back a voice said, loud and harsh:

"You would, would you? You'd be ugly, eh?"

It was Stenson's voice, and undoubtedly he had met with the bear!

"Come on, Da. Smart. We must get off. Thank God for the evening, and thank God for the bear!"

Nell laughed suddenly, a low, jerky laugh.

"Who'd have thought it?" said David. That was all. He was feeling the least bit guilty, because Nell had really wanted to go on. However, there it was--and thank God for the bear!

It took a very few minutes to clear out. The bundles were done up in double-quick time, and the rest was ready.

"Now then," said Nell, "and, Da, hold Robin; whatever happens he mustn't go."

David, strapping on snowshoes, agreed quickly, then he said:

"It's bad luck his finding the place warm and the stove still alight. It's a complete give-away."

"He won't find anything, unless he blows the door out. I've locked it and I've got the key," answered Nell grimly. "There's another shot! He's still busy. What a mercy it is getting really dark!"

Cautiously keeping the shack between themselves and the wood they sped down to the brink, out through the rotten ice and slush, and away on to the river. Then off, with all the speed they could muster, away and away, eastward again down that smooth snow-covered road, and the last thing they heard was another shot.

"I hope the old bear kills him," said David vindictively.

"Oh, he won't. Stenson's got his gun. But, Da, what a true mercy; if he hadn't come by the bear track he'd have actually walked into the shack and caught us going to bed."

"I'd have shot him if he had, as soon as wink," said David; "he wants peppering."

Nell laughed again. She had thought of that last resort herself!

Next time she spoke she said how splendid the rest had been. This was because she knew David was feeling a little guilty about it. Also it was very, very true. Both of them moved in quite a new way. The effort of that last day was gone; they were as fresh as when they started, and so was Robin.

Darker it grew and darker, till they went on with no light but the snow and a few stars, not the great shining stars of the farthest north, but stars that helped a little.

Nell was more anxious about the road underfoot than the skies overhead. There was always the danger of a flaw in the ice below, and she knew there might be holes--places where water had come up over the ice, places where streams from the bank running in made weakness. Nell had often heard stories of inexperienced folk going up north too late in the season, who had died a quick death because "the bottom fell out of the trail," that was the expression used when the ice road gave way under you and you went down and under the awful drifting sections of ice. And yet what were they to do? The river was better going than the rough shores which might be any kind of travelling, up hill, down dale, woods, streams cutting into the big one, every sort of delay and check.

It was best, she decided, to keep on, going fast, as long as they heard no cracking, serious cracking. If that began, they must land and get past any weak place by the bank.

"After all, we are not very heavy," she said, and comforted herself with that.

"He is," suggested David. "I wonder what he is doing now! I wonder if he'll break the lock of that shack, or if he'll hit our trail and follow up directly. Of course, he may have killed the bear. If he has he might stop to strip the pelt at once and come down to the shack afterwards."

So did David talk cheerfully, because he was refreshed by that good rest. Nell was glad to hear it. She also was refreshed and unafraid of the night, but the long, long road ahead seemed to rise before her eyes as they drove on and on into the darkness.

CHAPTER XV

IN WHICH THE ICE GOES OUT, AND THE TRAIL LEADS HOME

Now the reason that Mr. Jan Stenson turned up at the bunk house was not far to seek. It has been said he was proud of his cunning, and he was cunning, though Shines-in-the-Night baffled him by her clever trick.

He and Jukes saw the two Redskins cut across presently to the northward, going steadily on their way to the upper river. He would not interfere with them for the reason already stated. No good could come of quarrelling with Redskins. They never forgive. If it was after scores of years or over thousands of miles they would pay the score in full--ultimately. So he let the girl go and he and Jukes had a row.

Jukes taunted him with folly, and words grew very hot indeed. Finally Jukes went away by himself, saying he was going back to the shack in the hills. He went, sullen and savage.

Stenson was left alone, bitterly furious with the young Lindsays, because he was sure the first part of the trail was theirs, and he was equally sure he must have been hoaxed somehow. But how! And the presence of the young Indians was entirely surprising, too. He could not make it all out.

Doggedly he went back on that trail till he came to the lake. Then, as it was near midday, he made a short rest and ate some of his dried meat. After that he deliberately went back all the way to the rock of the Wolf's Tooth and began searching about there with care that he had not bestowed in the morning, when he had rather jumped to conclusions on first sighting the trail. Taken it all for granted, that is to say. Now he meant to unravel the mystery, and he came near enough to make a fair guess. Searching about with the skill of an old hand, he decided that the camp fire was not an Indian fire--too large--also there was far too much trampling up and down the bank for Redskins, who move like forest creatures. Then he followed tracks in the snow back and forth, till suddenly he came on the print of dog's feet. Then he gave a short laugh that was almost a shout. What a fool he'd been! It must be the dog's trail that proved the presence of the Lindsays. Why hadn't he remembered the dog!

From that moment he went hunting on a new plan, as it were. The Lindsays must have started from this promontory. He was sure of that. Therefore the point most evident was to find the start. From the fire he worked round, taking a semicircle on the land side and back again. By dusk he had not discovered what he wanted, but he believed he should, so he camped there that night and began again as soon as he could see well.

Of course he found the trail made by Nell, David, and the dog, right across by the north shore to beyond the first big bend of the river, where they took to the ice again. The thaw had made it more difficult, but such an old trailer as Stenson could not be deceived easily.

He found the fire where they stopped, and finally in the dusk, as described, he followed the trail up the steep to the neighbourhood of the bear's den. If he had not done that he would, of course, have surprised the two in the shack. As it was, the bear became, after all, a friend to the pair he had attacked in the first place.

When Stenson appeared the big black brute was in a worse mood than before. He was more hungry and he had smelt the scent of cooking that came from the stove-pipe of the log house. The trapper fired at him, because he was obviously dangerous and it had not occurred to him that the trail he had followed ended so soon. If it had, he would have been more cautious probably.

The bear, slightly wounded, made a dash for the man, who ran behind a tree and fired again. But the light was deceiving, and the affair ended in the bear retreating into the rocky fortress--to fight another day. Stenson, seeing drops of blood on the snow, decided to come again, kill the bear, and get the pelt; meanwhile he would go on down to the shack, which was, he knew, not far distant on this curve of the river bank. Therefore he presently came down to the log hut and found it was locked. That did not surprise him much, but he expected to find the key hung as usual in some place under the sheltering eaves of the log roof.

By this time it was too dark to see a trail, or find a small thing like a key. So Mr. Jan Stenson lost his temper, as he usually did, and blew in the lock of the door, as he had done to another log house not long before!

Instantly he was greeted by a smell of warmth and food. The little place had not had time to cool. The blankets were warm. The stove hastily filled up with fresh wood, already dry, was quite hot.

Stenson rushed out into the snow, and lighting a torch made of a bit of dry bark, looked about over the ground and found at once the track of the three sets of footprints to the water's edge--or rather to the edge of the ice.

He went slowly back to the shack, considering what he should do, and the final conclusion he came to was--a mistake.

He did not imagine that the Lindsays were but ten minutes ahead of him. Had he been sure of that he would certainly have followed on at once. The smartness of Nell's retreat was beyond him. He did not believe she would have gone off down river in the dark. It was unreasonable to suppose that two young things would have started at nightfall. Therefore he decided to follow his inclination, now he knew that they must be about six or eight hours ahead of him at the outside, on a direct course to Moose River and probably unsuspicious of his approach. He would make a good meal, take a few hours' comfortable sleep and go on again at dawn. He was travelling faster than they were. They seemed entirely at his mercy, for the river was wide and open, while there would be many, many miles of Moose River yet to cover.

Thus, while Nell, David, and Robin drove their weary feet on and on through the night hours, Mr. Stenson slept soundly and woke up before daybreak to finish the food Andrew Lindsay had cached. It was certainly not justice, but that has nothing to do with adventures, very often, anyway.

Later on he started, picked up the trail at once and went off down river at a pace that over-gained on the hunted pair from the first. Given time, and a clear field, he was simply bound to overtake them, and he knew it.

Nell was obliged to call a rest early in the morning. They had to light a fire and fry some bacon, which Robin shared. Anxiety was telling on her as well as fatigue, and her legs trembled with weariness. David was really wonderful, but he was rather silent, and Robin's feet were a little sore. He was not used to so many miles of travel; ice particles got between his toes, and though he bit them out when the party rested, after so many days of irritation and wetness it had caused pain. He was a little lame, too.

"Oh, when will it end?" was poor Nell's feeling as they packed up and went on again. This time not for many hours. They had to call another halt which stretched to middle day. The sun was shining gloriously and the whole world was one sheet of sparkles. Had they been less tired, it would have seemed a glorious day to be alive on. The country was flatter and more open as a rule, but in places the woods came again, and the twittering of birds sounded in the dripping branches.

About three o'clock in the afternoon, David called Nell's attention to a line of willows across the low pastures towards the south. A very long way ahead, but still visible. Was it not a tributary stream, a little river, running into their own road? They both stood still to look and consider. It was--or might be--important, because sometimes a mile or two up these tributary streams a homestead would be found, a farm or small settlement. There was just a chance that it might be so in this case, the open country to the south appearing somehow to suggest cultivation, or they thought so.

Standing so, Nell looked round, and her heart gave a sickening leap as she realised the full horror of what she saw.

Jan Stenson, coming straight down the river after them. Too far off for them to see his face, but the short, strong figure they knew.

David saw also; his remark was characteristic.

"Well, we're three, he's one. We'll have to kill him."

"Da! He'll shoot Robin."

"Can't we shoot him?" retorted the boy fiercely.

"Come on," was Nell's answer.

The weakness left them in sheer excitement, and they raced ahead. Nell, thinking hard of ways and means, felt her mind haunted by the corner where the smaller river joined in. Should they make a stand by the willows? Perhaps pistol shots might be heard by someone and bring help. It was a very poor chance, though.

She looked round. Stenson gained very little. Their spurt had been useful. Now they were nearing the corner. Which should they do?

In the excitement of the race the condition of the ice had been almost forgotten, but at this point there was a loud crack, and then another. Nell had a feeling as though the ice beneath their snow road had swayed. Glancing at the bank nearest the willows she saw the whole ice line move and shift at the edges.

Robin was running with his nose to the ground as usual, but he checked now with a whine of anxiety, and sheered off from the side where the new stream opened up.

"Follow Robin," ordered Nell sharply. "Not too close together, Da--the higher we are the better."

There was another crack, and behind the flying snowshoes a thin line of water oozed up in one place, then all was quiet again.

Robin sped on, choosing his path, and the two followed. They were so intent that Nell forgot her feeling about the other stream, or rather she abandoned the idea in the excitement of getting over that dangerous place. The only thing to do seemed to be to go straight ahead.

David was talking excitedly, and she had not even listened, because of her anxiety. But when they were going on safely again she said, "What?"

"Why, Stenson, Nell! If he doesn't land and go by the banks, he'll smash through sure as----"

"He'll land," said Nell; "it won't delay him much to do that."

"Not so sure," grunted David, and he kept on looking back over his shoulder.

Nell was just going to beg him not to do it, because it checked their speed a little, when he gave a crow of triumph and stopped short.

Nell perforce stopped, while in her ears rang a sharp far-away splitting sound.

Mr. Jan Stenson had reached the weak spot--and the ice had gone under with him.

From side to side of the river behind the two came reports, as the ice gave in all directions.

"Oh," gasped Nell, "what ought we--to do!"

"I believe you want to go back and help him out! I say, Nell, you really are!"

"But, Da, it's rather awful!"

"Oh no. Only awfully wet, and jolly cold. Look, he's got his arms over the edge of the ice and is breaking along towards the shore. He'll get out--in the end. Come on."

The last thing they saw, in far distance, was a figure crawling very slowly out on to the north bank. It did not seem to be moving in their direction. As a matter of fact, Jan Stenson made the best of his way back to the shack, having lost his gun, though he saved his life--by a very narrow margin! It would have been madness to follow the flying pair in his drenched clothes, with no means of making a fire, as his ammunition and matches were soaked. Better to get back to warmth and dryness--and start again to-morrow.