th of a small stream
flowing from the left. "Mebbe they're hunters and pulled their freight
long ago."

Smoke, scooping the light snow away with mittened hands, paused to
consider, scooped again, and again paused. "No," he decided. "There's
been travel both ways, but the last travel was up that creek. Whoever
they are, they're there now--certain. There's been no travel for weeks.
Now what's been keeping them there all the time? That's what I want to
know."

"And what I want to know is where we're going to camp to-night," Shorty
said, staring disconsolately at the sky-line in the southwest, where the
mid-afternoon twilight was darkening into night.

"Let's follow the track up the creek," was Smoke's suggestion. "There's
plenty of dead timber. We can camp any time."

"Sure we can camp any time, but we got to travel most of the time if we
ain't goin' to starve, an' we got to travel in the right direction."

"We're going to find something up that creek," Smoke went on.

"But look at the grub! Look at them dogs!" Shorty cried. "Look at--oh,
hell, all right. You will have your will."

"It won't make the trip a day longer," Smoke urged. "Possibly no more
than a mile longer."

"Men has died for as little as a mile," Shorty retorted, shaking his
head with lugubrious resignation. "Come on for trouble. Get up, you poor
sore-foots, you--get up! Haw! You Bright! Haw!"

The lead-dog obeyed, and the whole team strained weakly into the soft
snow.

"Whoa!" Shorty yelled. "It's pack trail."

Smoke pulled his snow-shoes from under the sled-lashings, bound them to
his moccasined feet, and went to the fore to press and pack the light
surface for the dogs.

It was heavy work. Dogs and men had been for days on short rations, and
few and limited were the reserves of energy they could call upon. Though
they followed the creek bed, so pronounced was its fall that they toiled
on a stiff and unrelenting up-grade. The high rocky walls quickly drew
near together, so that their way led up the bottom of a narrow gorge.
The long lingering twilight, blocked by the high mountains, was no more
than semi-darkness.

"It's a trap," Shorty said. "The whole look of it is rotten. It's a hole
in the ground. It's the stampin'-ground of trouble."

Smoke made no reply, and for half an hour they toiled on in silence--a
silence that was again broken by Shorty.

"She's a-workin'," he grumbled. "She's sure a-workin', an' I'll tell you
if you're mind