wards the farthest bluff, feeling that he was largely to
blame for the party's difficulties.

Knowing something of the country, he should have insisted on turning
back when he found they could obtain no dog-teams to transport their
supplies. Occasionally the Hudson's Bay agents and patrols of the
North-West Police made long journeys in Arctic weather, but they were
provided with proper sledges and sufficient preserved food. Indeed,
Blake was astonished that he and his comrades had got so far. He had,
however, given way to Harding, who hardly knew the risks he ran, and
now he supposed must take the consequences. This did not daunt him
badly. After all, life had not much to offer an outcast, and though he
had managed to extract some amusement from it he had nothing to look
forward to. There was no prospect of his making money--his talents
were not commercial--and the hardships he could bear with now would
press on him more heavily as he grew older. These considerations,
however, were too philosophical for him to continue. He was
essentially a man of action and feeling unpleasantly hungry, and he
quickened his pace, knowing that the chance of his getting a shot at a
caribou in the open was small.

The moon had not risen when he reached the bluff, but the snow
reflected a faint light and he noticed a row of small depressions on
its surface. Kneeling down, he examined them, but there had been wind
during the day and the marks were blurred. He felt for a match, but
his fingers were too numbed to open the watertight case, and he
proceeded to measure the distance between the footprints. This was an
unreliable test because a big deer's stride varies with its pace, but
he thought the tracks indicated a caribou. Then he stopped, without
rising, and looked about.

Close in front the trees rose in a shadowy wall against the clear blue
sky; there was no wind, and it was oppressively still. He could see
about a quarter of a mile across the open, but the darkness of the wood
was impenetrable and its silence daunting. The row of tracks was the
only sign of life he had seen for days.

While he listened a faint howl came out of the distance and was
followed by another. After the deep silence, the sound was startling
and there was danger in it, for Blake recognized the cry of the timber
wolves. The big grey brutes would make short work of a lonely man and
his flesh crept as he wondered whether they were on his trail. O