n the rigours of the Arctic winter.

After a day or two the Indians, who were going no farther, landed them
and they entered a belt of very broken country across which they must
push to reach a larger stream. The ground was rocky, pierced by
ravines, and covered with clumps of small trees. There were stony
tracts they painfully picked their way across, steep ridges to be
clambered over, and belts of quaggy muskeg they must skirt, and the
day's march grew rapidly shorter. Benson, however, gave them no
trouble; the man was getting hard and was generally cheerful, while
when he had an occasional fit of moroseness as he fought with the
longing that tormented him they left him alone. Still at times they
were daunted by the rugged sternness of the region they were steadily
pushing through, and the thought of the long return journey troubled
them.

One night when it was raining they sat beside their fire in a desolate
gorge. A cold wind swept between the thin spruce trunks that loomed
vaguely out of the surrounding gloom as the red glare leaped up, and
wisps of acrid smoke drifted about the camp. There was a lake up the
hollow, and now and then the wild and mournful cry of a loon rang out.
The men were tired and somewhat dejected as they sat about the blaze
with their damp blankets round them, but by and by Blake, who had been
feeling drowsy, looked up.

"What was that?" he asked.

The others could hear nothing but the sound of running water and the
wail of the wind. Since leaving the Indians they had seen no sign of
life and believed they were crossing uninhabited wilds. Blake could
not tell what had suddenly roused his attention, but in former days he
had developed his perceptive faculties by close night watching on the
Indian frontier, where any relaxing of his vigilance might have cost
his life. Something, he thought, was moving in the bush and he felt
uneasy. Then he rose as a stick cracked, and Harding called out as a
shadowy figure appeared on the edge of the light. Blake laughed, but
his uneasiness did not desert him when he recognized Clarke. The
fellow was not to be trusted and had come upon them in a startling
manner. Moving coolly forward, he sat down by the fire.

"I suppose you were surprised to see me," he remarked.

"That's so," Harding answered and added nothing further, while Benson,
whose face wore a curious strained expression, did not speak.

"Well," said Clarke, who filled his pipe, "