hand over his eyes.

The Boy had seen the thing first, and had said to himself, "Looks like
a sled, but it's a vision. It's come to seeing things now."

When he saw the Colonel stop and stare, he threw down his rope and
began to laugh, for there below were the blackened remains of a big
fire, silhouetted sharply on the snow.

"Looks like we've come to a camp, Boss!"

He hadn't called the Colonel by the old nickname for many a day. He
stood there laughing in an idiotic kind of way, wrapping his stiff
hands in his parki, Indian fashion, and looking down to the level of
the ancient river terrace, where the weather-stained old Indian sled
was sharply etched on the moonlit whiteness.

Just a sled lying in the moonlight. But the change that can be wrought
in a man's heart upon sight of a human sign! it may be idle to speak of
that to any but those who have travelled the desolate ways of the
North.

Side by side the two went down the slope, slid and slipped and couldn't
stop themselves, till they were below the landmark. Looking up, they
saw that a piece of soiled canvas or a skin, held down with a
drift-log, fell from under the sled, portiere-wise from the top of the
terrace, straight down to the sheltered level, where the camp fire had
been. Coming closer, they saw the curtain was not canvas, but dressed
deerskin.

"Indians!" said the Colonel.

But with the rubbing out of other distinctions this, too, was curiously
faint. Just so there were human beings it seemed enough. Within four
feet of the deerskin door the Colonel stopped, shot through by a sharp
misgiving. What was behind? A living man's camp, or a dead man's tomb?
Succour, or some stark picture of defeat, and of their own oncoming
doom?

The Colonel stood stock-still waiting for the Boy. For the first time
in many days even he hung back. He seemed to lack the courage to be the
one to extinguish hope by the mere drawing of a curtain from a
snow-drift's face. The Kentuckian pulled himself together and went
forward. He lifted his hand to the deerskin, but his fingers shook so
he couldn't take hold:

"Hello!" he called. No sound. Again: "Hello!"

"Who's there?"

The two outside turned and looked into each other's faces--but if you
want to know all the moment meant, you must travel the Winter Trail.

CHAPTER XIV

KURILLA

"And I swear to you Athenians--by the dog I swear!--for I must tell you
the truth----."--SOCRATES.

The voice that had as