had a fire built an hour before dawn, and with the first gray streaking
of day was on the trail again. He made no further effort to follow signs
of the pursued, for that was a hopeless task. But he knew how McKay was
heading, and he traveled swiftly, figuring to cover twice the distance
that Nada might travel in the same given time. It was three o'clock in
the afternoon when he came to a great ridge, and on its highest pinnacle
he stopped.

Peter had grown restless again, and a little more suspicious of Breault.
He was not afraid of him, but all that day he had found no scent of Nada
or Jolly Roger, and slowly the conviction was impinging itself upon him
that he should seek for himself in the wilderness.

Breault saw this restlessness, and understood it.

"I'll keep my eye on the dog," he thought. "He has a nose, and an
uncanny sixth sense, and I haven't either. He will bear watching.
I believe McKay and the girl cannot be far away. Possibly they have
traveled more slowly than I thought, and haven't passed this ridge; or
it may be they are down there, in the plain. If so I should catch sign
of smoke or fire--in time."

For an hour he kept watch over the plain through his binoculars, seeking
for a wisp of smoke that might rise at any time over the treetops. He
did not lose sight of Peter, questing out in widening circles below him.
And then, quite unexpectedly, something happened. In the edge of a
tiny meadow an eighth of a mile away Peter was acting strangely. He was
nosing the ground, gulping the wind, twisting eagerly back and forth.
Then he set out, steadily and with unmistakable decision, south and
west.

In a flash Breault was on his feet, had caught up his pack, and was
running for the meadow. And there he found something in the velvety
softness of the earth which brought a grim smile to his thin lips as he,
too, set out south and west.

The scent he had found, hours old, drew Peter on until in the edge of
the dusk of evening it brought him to a foot-worn trail leading to the
Hudson's Bay Company post many miles south. In this path, beaten by the
feet of generations of forest dwellers, the hard heels of McKay's boots
had made their imprint, and after this the scent was clearer under
Peter's nose. But with forest-bred caution he still traveled slowly,
though his blood was burning like a pitch-fed fire in his veins. Almost
as swiftly followed Breault behind him.

Again came darkness, and then the moon, brig