erature lowered. It became necessary to
assume thicker garments. Once having bridged the river the ice
strengthened rapidly. And then late one afternoon, on the wings of the
northwest wind, came the snow. All night it howled past the trembling
wigwam. All the next day it swirled and drifted and took the shapes of
fantastic monsters leaping in the riot of the storm. Then the stars,
cold and brilliant, once more crackled in the heavens. The wilderness in
a single twenty-four hours had changed utterly. Winter had come.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

In the starlit, bitter cold of a north country morning the three packed
their sledge and harnessed their dogs. The rawhide was stubborn with the
frost, the dogs uneasy. Knots would not tie. Pain nipped the fingers,
cruel pain that ate in and in until it had exposed to the shock of
little contacts every tightened nerve. Each stiff, clumsy movement was
agony. From time to time one of the three thrust hand in mitten to beat
the freezing back. Then a new red torture surged to the very
finger-tips. They bore it in silence, working hastily, knowing that
every morning of the long, winter trip this fearful hour must come. Thus
each day the North would greet them, squeezing their fingers in the
cruel hand-clasp of an antagonist testing their strength.

Over the supplies and blankets was drawn the skin envelope laced to the
sledge. The last reluctant knot was tied. Billy, the leader of the four
dogs, casting an intelligent eye at his masters, knew that all was
ready, and so arose from his haunches. Dick twisted his feet skilfully
into the loops of his snow-shoes. Sam, already equipped, seized the
heavy dog-whip. The girl took charge of the gee-pole with which the
sledge would be guided.

"Mush!--Mush on!" shouted Sam.

The four dogs leaned into their collars. The sledge creaked free of its
frost anchorage and moved.

First it became necessary to drop from the elevation to the river-bed.
Dick and May-may-gwan clung desperately. Sam exercised his utmost skill
and agility to keep the dogs straight. The toboggan hovered an instant
over the edge of the bank, then plunged, coasting down. Men hung back,
dogs ran to keep ahead. A smother of light snow settled to show, in the
dim starlight, the furrow of descent. And on the broad, white surface of
the river were eight spot of black which represented the followers of
the Long Trail.

Dick shook himself and stepped ahead of the dogs.

"Mush!