Rivers and
lakes would be frozen then. That might make traveling easier, if they
could pick up the hand sleds they had cached; but there was a limit to
the provisions they could transport, and unless fresh supplies could be
obtained they would have a long distance to traverse on scanty rations
in the rigors of the arctic winter.

After a day or two the Indians, who were going no farther, landed them,
and they entered a belt of very broken country across which they must
push to reach a larger stream. The ground was rocky, pierced by
ravines, and covered with clumps of small trees. There were stony
tracts across which they painfully picked their way, steep ridges to be
clambered over, and belts of quaggy muskeg they must skirt. Benson,
however, gave them no trouble; the man was getting hard and was
generally cheerful; and when he had an occasional fit of moroseness, as
he fought with the longing that tormented him, they left him alone.
Still, at times they were daunted by the rugged sternness of the region
they were steadily pushing through, and the thought of the long return
journey troubled them.

One night, when it was raining, they sat beside their fire in a
desolate gorge. A cold wind swept between the thin spruce trunks that
loomed vaguely out of the surrounding gloom as the red glare leaped up,
and wisps of acrid smoke drifted about the camp. There was a lake up
the hollow, and now and then the wild and mournful cry of a loon rang
out. The men were tired and somewhat dejected as they sat about the
blaze with their damp blankets round them. A silence had fallen upon
them; but suddenly Blake looked up, startled.

"What was that?" he exclaimed.

The others could hear nothing but the sound of running water and the
wail of the wind. Since leaving the Indians they had seen no sign of
life and believed that they were crossing uninhabited wilds. Blake
could not tell what had suddenly roused his attention, but in former
days he had developed his perceptive faculties by close night watching
on the Indian frontier, where any relaxing of his vigilance might have
cost his life. Something, he thought, was moving in the bush, and he
felt uneasy.

A stick cracked, and Harding called out as a shadowy figure appeared on
the edge of the light. Blake laughed, but his uneasiness did not
desert him when he recognized Clarke. The fellow was not to be
trusted, and he had come upon them in a startling manner.

"I supp