e,
as I was still well provided with food and ammunition. Because you had
told me that the Forbidden River was unexplored and never visited,
being haunted by Manitous and shades of the dead, I turned into it and
travelled up it--I thought that I should find safety there.

"On the second day, just as evening was falling, I saw the flare of a
camp-fire, about two miles ahead. You'll remember that my nerves were
badly shaken when I came to you at Murder Point; and they hadn't been
much improved by those five days of flight through the winter
loneliness. When I saw that light blaze up in the distance, I began to
be afraid--and it wasn't the fear of men that I was thinking about. I
waited until it was utterly night and then, leaving my dogs behind,
stole stealthily forward to prospect. As I drew nearer, I saw that a
hut of boughs had been erected, and that a man was sitting, with his
rifle on his knees, before the fire. He was very old and tall. But I
had no opportunity to get a closer view of him, for, at that moment,
he must have heard me; he put his head on one side to listen, and
rose to his feet. Without the waste of any time, he fired in my
direction. Luckily I had thrown myself flat along the snow, for the
bullet whizzed over my head. He advanced towards me a little way, and
then, thinking that he had been mistaken, went back to his fire,
grumbling to himself, and sat down. The cold ate into my bones, yet I
dared not stir until I was certain that he had gone to sleep.
Presently he arose, looked suspiciously around, piled more wood on his
fire, and went into his hut.

"I hurried back to where I had left my dogs, harnessed them in and,
leaving the river-bank, travelled into the bush for a distance of
about two miles; there I tied them up, and then returned to the river
by myself, coming out at a point somewhat nearer to the old man's hut.
I lay down behind a clump of trees and waited. Before day had come, I
could hear that he was astir; but he seemed to be almighty busy for a
Keewatin trapper, who was only changing camp. About midday he had made
his preparations, and, stamping out his fire, set out down-stream, in
the direction of the Last Chance River. I knew that in half-an-hour he
must come across my trail, and have his suspicions of the previous
night confirmed. Sure enough, after he had passed my place of hiding
and had got below me about three hundred yards, he struck my tracks.
He pulled up sharply, and wheeled