d man, and said nothing because there was nothing to say. The Ojibway
girl remained inscrutable, helping where she could, apparently desirous
of neither praise nor blame.

At the end of three days the provisions were ready. There had resulted
perhaps sixty pounds of "jerky." It now became necessary to leave the
water-way, and to strike directly through the forest, over the hills,
and into the country of the Kabinikagam.

Dick shouldered a thirty-pound pack and the canoe. Sam Bolton and the
girl managed the remainder. Every twenty minutes or so they would rest,
sinking back against the trunks of trees, mossy stones, or a bank of new
ferns. The forest was open and inexpressibly lofty. Moose maples, young
birches, and beeches threw their coolness across the face, then above
them the columns of the trunks, then far up in green distance the leaves
again, like the gold-set roof of a church. The hill mounted always
before them. Ancient rocks hoary with moss, redolent of dampness, stood
like abandoned altars given over to decay. A strange, sweet wind
freighted with stray bird-notes wandered aimlessly.

Nothing was said. Dick led the way and set the intervals of the
carrying. When he swung the canoe from his shoulders the others slipped
their tump-lines. Then all rubbed their faces with the broad
caribou-leaf to keep off the early flies, and lay back, arms extended,
breathing deep, resting like boxers between the rounds. Once at the top
of the ridge Dick climbed a tree. He did this, not so much in
expectation of seeing the water-courses themselves, as to judge by the
general lay of the country where they might be found.

In a bare open space under hemlocks Sam indicated a narrow, high, little
pen, perhaps three feet long by six inches wide, made of cut saplings.
Dick examined it.

"Marten deadfall," he pronounced. "Made last winter. Somebody's been
trapping through here."

After a time a blaze on a tree was similarly remarked. Then the
travellers came to a tiny creek, which, being followed, soon debouched
into a larger. This in turn became navigable, after the north-country
fashion. That is to say, the canoe with its load could much of the time
be floated down by the men wading in the bed of the creek. Finally Sam,
who was in the lead, jerked his head toward the left bank.

"Their winter camp," said he, briefly.

A dim trail led from the water to a sheltered knoll. There stood the
framework of a pointed tepee, the long