human beings. He had, for the time, ceased to be the
cool and calculating man-hunter intent on the possession of another's
life. He knew that his duty was to get Bram and take him back to
headquarters, and he also knew that he would perform his duty when the
opportunity came--unless he had guessed correctly the significance of
the golden snare.

And had he guessed correctly? There was a tremendous doubt in his mind,
and yet he was strangely thrilled. He tried to argue that there were
many ways in which Bram might have secured the golden hairs that had
gone into the making of his snare; and that the snare itself might long
have been carried as a charm against the evils of disease and the devil
by the strange creature whose mind and life were undoubtedly directed
to a large extent by superstition. In that event it was quite logical
that Bram had come into possession of his golden talisman years ago.

In spite of himself, Philip could not believe that this was so. At
noon, when he built a small fire to make tea and warm his bannock, he
took the golden tress from his wallet and examined it even more closely
than last night. It might have come from a woman's head only yesterday,
so bright and shimmery was it in the pale light of the midday sun. He
was amazed at the length and fineness of it, and the splendid texture
of each hair. Possibly there were half a hundred hairs, each of an
equal and unbroken length.

He ate his dinner, and went on. Three days of storm had covered utterly
every trace of the trail made by Bram and his wolves. He was convinced,
however, that Bram would travel in the scrub timber close to the
Barren. He had already made up his mind that this Barren--the Great
Barren of the unmapped north--was the great snow sea in which Bram had
so long found safety from the law. Beaching five hundred miles east and
west, and almost from the Sixtieth degree to the Arctic Ocean, its
un-peopled and treeless wastes formed a tramping ground for him as safe
as the broad Pacific to the pirates of old. He could not repress a
shivering exclamation as his mind dwelt on this world of Bram's. It was
worse than the edge of the Arctic, where one might at least have the
Eskimo for company.

He realized the difficulty of his own quest. His one chance lay in fair
weather, and the discovery of an old trail made by Bram and his pack.
An old trail would lead to fresher ones. Also he was determined to
stick to the edge of the scrub ti