"Did you ever see signs of oil?"

"No here; there's petroleum three hundred miles south, but no enough,
in my opinion, to pay for driving wells. Onyway, the two prospecting
parties that once came up didna come back again."

He left them presently, and when they heard him moving about an
adjoining room, Harding made a suggestion.

"We'll stay here for a while and then look for that petroleum on our
way to the settlements."

Blake agreed readily; the determination, he thought, was characteristic
of his comrade. Harding's project had failed, but instead of being
crushed by disappointment, he was already considering another.

CHAPTER XVIII

THE BACK TRAIL

Blake and his friends spent three weeks at the Hudson Bay post, and
throughout the first fortnight an icy wind hurled the snow against the
quivering building. It was dangerous to venture as far as a
neighboring bluff, where fuel had been cut; Benson and the agent, who
were hauling cordwood home, narrowly escaped from death one evening in
the suddenly freshening storm. None of the half-breeds could reach the
factory, and Robertson confessed to some anxiety about them. There was
little that could be done, and they spent the dreary days lounging
about the red-hot stove, and listening to the roar of the gale. In the
long evenings, Robertson told them grim stories of the North.

Then there came a week of still, clear weather, with intense frost; and
when several of the trappers arrived, Robertson suggested that his
guests had better accompany a man who was going some distance south
with a dog team. He could, however, spare them only a scanty supply of
food, and they knew that a long forced march lay before them when they
left their guide.

Day was breaking when the dogs were harnessed to the sled, and Harding
and his companions, shivering in their furs, felt a strong reluctance
to leave the factory. It was a rude place and very lonely, but they
had enjoyed warmth and food there, and their physical nature shrank
from the toil and the bitter cold. None of them wished to linger in
the North--Harding least of all--but it was daunting to contemplate the
distance that lay between them and the settlements. Strong effort and
stern endurance would be required of them before they rested beside a
hearth again.

There was no wind, the smoke went straight up and, spreading out, hung
above the roof in a motionless cloud; the snow had a strange ghostly
glimmer