ked
across the crust, dragging some heavy object.

"Here's your fresh meat, Hackett--two hind-quarters," he panted. "Load
it on."

"The boys will be r'iled to find Ben here in the mornin'!" whined the
other man.

"He won't eat any more grain f'r me!" the colonel boomed, wrathfully.
"Then again, it will show that after Mister Railroad Man broke out of
the wangan camp he killed the moose to get grub to last him for his
trip, bein' afraid to tackle Gid Ward's camps. The boys will be ready
to massacree him if they can lay hands on him, but," his tones became
ominously significant, "remember your lines now, man! Get away and I'll
look after this end."

Parker felt the loaded sled glide over the crust. He could hardly
believe that these men meditated anything except a change in his
place of imprisonment; but as the sled moved on and on, and in his
helplessness he weighed the situation, he began to feel a vague fear of
possibilities. He began to plan means of escape. When at last the sled
went scaling down a long slope, he rolled off on the crust.

As he lay there, he expected every moment to hear the man shout an oath
and return. When the hasty creaking of the footsteps died away, he knew
that the lightened sled, following of its own momentum, had not betrayed
him.

Hoodwinked and pinioned, it was no easy task to travel among the trees
and across the slippery crust. As Parker scrambled along, he was tempted
to cry out and appeal to the man to return. Now that his sudden panic
of the flitting sled was over, the dull, cold fear of a helpless and
abandoned man came upon him. But he clinched his teeth to keep back the
cry that struggled to follow the man of the sled, and kept pushing on
into the undergrowth.

At last he stopped and began to scrub his forehead against the rough
bark of a tree, endeavoring to remove the bandage. After a time he
worked it above his eyes, although it still bound his head like a
turban.

He could see the crisp stars through the interlocking branches. He found
the pole star. But as he had been unable to guess the direction his
captor had taken in leaving the camp, the points of the compass mattered
little in this wilderness, where all was strange.

Parker went on, reflecting uneasily that every step might be taking him
directly back to Colonel Ward's camp. His grotesque garb hampered his
movements. He lumbered along as awkwardly as a bear. After a time he
came through some little spruces t