ded men, reeling men,
dying men, and raced as I never put foot to ground before or since, for
Lac Tremblant, glittering clear and free in front of me,--that Lac
Tremblant I had thought of subconsciously when I carried snowshoes into
Collins's cave.

In the beginning of this story I said what Lac Tremblant was like. It
was a lake that was no lake; that should have been our water-way out of
the bush instead of miles of expensive road; and was no more practicable
than a rope ladder to the stars. For the depth of Lac Tremblant, or its
fairway, were two things no man might count on. It would fall in a night
to shallows a child might wade through, among bristling rocks no one had
ever guessed at; and rise in a morning to the tops of the spruce scrub
on its banks,--a sweet spread of water, with never a rock to be seen.
What hidden spring fed it was a mystery. But in the bitterest winter it
was never frozen further than to form surging masses of frazil ice that
would neither let a canoe push through them, nor yet support the weight
of a man. It was on that frazil ice, that some people called lolly, that
I meant to run for my life now, trusting to the resistance of the two
feet of snow that lay on the lake in the mysterious way snow does lie on
lolly, and to the snowshoes on my feet. And as I slithered on to the
soft snow of the lake, from the crackling, breaking shell ice on the La
Chance shore, I knew I had done well. Some--a good many--of Macartney's
men were killed or half-killed by our deadly blast, but not all. He had
been more cautious than I guessed. I saw the rest of his men bunched
some hundred feet from the smashed-out tunnel; saw Macartney, too,
standing with them. But all I cared for was that he should see me and
come out after me on the crust of snow and lolly over Lac
Tremblant,--that would never carry him without the snowshoes he did not
have--and give Paulette her chance to get away. I yelled at him and
skimmed out over the trembling ice like a bird.

Neither Macartney nor his men had stirred in that one flying glance I
had dared take at them. But sheer tumult came out of them now. Then
shots--shots that missed me, and a sudden howled order from Macartney I
dared not turn my head or break my stride to understand. The giving
surface under me was bearing, but a quarter-second's pause would have
let me through. There was no sense in zigzagging. Once I was clear, I
ran as straight as I dared for the other shore, fi