of luncheon. No snow
had come since Halstead and Alfred left, and we could still see along
the old lumber road the faint marks of their hand-sled runners. In the
hollows where the film of snow was a little deeper, two boot tracks were
visible.

"Halse wouldn't go off far into the woods alone, after Alf left him,"
said I.

"No, he is too big a coward," said Addison.

It was thirteen miles up to the Old Slave's Farm, where the negro--who
called himself Pinkney Doman--had lived for so many years before the
Civil War.

"We can make it in three hours!" Addison exclaimed. "If we find him
there, we shall be back before dark. And we had better hurry," he added,
with a glance at the sky. "For I guess there's a storm coming; feels
like it."

In a yellow-birch top at a little opening near the old road we saw two
partridges eating buds; Addison shot one of them and took it along,
slung to his gun barrel.

The faint trail of the sled continued along the old winter road all the
way up to the clearing where the negro had lived, and by ten o'clock we
came into view of the two log cabins. Very still and solitary they
looked under that cold gray sky.

"No smoke," Addison said. "But we'll soon know." He called once. We then
hurried forward and pushed open the door of the larger cabin. No one was
there.

But clearly the two truants had stopped there, for the sled track led
directly to the door of the cabin. There had been a fire in the stone
fireplace. Beside a log at the door, too, Addison espied a hatchet that
a while before we had missed from the tool bench in the wagon-house.

"Well, if that isn't like their carelessness!" he exclaimed, laughing.
"I'll take this along."

But the runaways had not tarried long. We found the sled track again,
leading into the woods at the northwest of the clearing.

"Well, that settles it," said Addison. "They haven't gone to Adger's,
for that is east from here. I'll tell you! They went to Boundary Camp on
Lurvey's Stream. And that's eighteen or nineteen miles from here." He
glanced at the sky. "Now, what shall we do? It will snow to-night."

"Perhaps we could get up there by dark," said I.

For a moment Addison considered. "All right!" he exclaimed. "It's a long
jaunt. But come on!"

On we tramped again, following that will-o'-the-wisp of a hand-sled
track into the thick spruce forest. For the first nine or ten miles
everything went well; then one of the dangers of the great Maine woo