eping over him a slow
and irresistible foreboding--a premonition of something impending, of a
great danger close at hand. His muscles grew tense, and he clutched the
club, ready for action.

CHAPTER XVII

It seemed to Philip, as he stood with the club ready in his hand, that
the world had ceased to breathe in its anticipation of the thing for
which he was waiting--and listening. The wind had dropped dead. There
was not a rustle in the tree-tops, not a sound to break the stillness.
The silence, so close after storm, was an Arctic phenomenon which did
not astonish him, and yet the effect of it was almost painfully
gripping. Minor sounds began to impress themselves on his senses--the
soft murmur of the falling snow, his own breath, the pounding of his
heart. He tried to throw off the strange feeling that oppressed him,
but it was impossible. Out there in the darkness he would have sworn
that there were eyes and ears strained as his own were strained. And
the darkness was lifting. Shadows began to disentangle themselves from
the gray chaos. Trees and bushes took form, and over his head the last
heavy windrows of clouds shouldered their way out of the sky.

Still, as the twilight of dawn took the place of night, he did not
move, except to draw himself a little closer into the shelter of the
scrub spruce behind which he had hidden himself. He wondered if Celie
would be frightened at his absence. But he could not compel himself to
go on--or back. SOMETHING WAS COMING! He was as positive of it as he
was of the fact that night was giving place to day. Yet he could see
nothing--hear nothing. It was light enough now for him to see movement
fifty yards away, and he kept his eyes fastened on the little open
across which their trail had come. If Olaf Anderson the Swede had been
there he might have told him of another night like this, and another
vigil. For Olaf had learned that the Eskimos, like the wolves, trail
two by two and four by four, and that--again like the wolves--they
pursue not ON the trail but with the trail between them.

But it was the trail that Philip watched; and as he kept his
vigil--that inexplicable mental undercurrent telling him that his
enemies were coming--his mind went back sharply to the girl a hundred
yards behind him. The acuteness of the situation sent question after
question rushing through his mind, even as he gripped his club, For her
he was about to fight. For her he was ready to kill, an