no tracks."

"There must be some smaller animals that the Indians eat," Benson
suggested.

"None of us knows where to look for them, and we haven't much time to
spare for hunting."

"That's so," Harding agreed. "What's your plan?"

"I'm in favor of heading southwest. It may mean an extra hundred
miles, or more, but it would bring us nearer the Stony village, and
afterward the logging camp on the edge of the timber, where we might
get supplies."

"It's understood that the Indians are often half starved in winter,"
Benson reminded him. "For all that, they might have had good luck;
and, anyway, we couldn't cross the prairie with an empty grubsack. My
vote's for striking off to the west."

Harding concurred, though his leg had threatened further trouble during
the last day or two, and he would have preferred the shorter route.

"What about the petroleum?" Blake asked.

"We can't stop to look for it unless we can lay in a good stock of
food, and I don't suppose we could do much prospecting with the snow on
the ground," Harding paused with a thoughtful air. "When we reach the
settlement I must go home, but if the money can be raised, I'll be back
as soon as the thaw comes, to try for the oil, Clarke's an unusually
smart man, and there's no doubt he's on the trail."

"We'll raise enough money somehow," Benson declared.

Harding smiled.

"Yes, we'll raise the money somehow," he agreed. "It has been my
experience that when you want a thing badly enough, there's always some
way to get it."

He knocked the ashes out of his pipe, and stood up, stretching and
yawning.

"Right now I want sleep," he said.

When dawn came the next morning, it was snowing hard, and for a week
they made poor progress, with a bitter gale driving the flakes in their
faces. Each day the distance covered steadily lessened, and rations
were cut down accordingly. Harding's leg was getting sore, but he did
not mean to speak of it unless it became necessary. They were,
however, approaching the neighborhood of the Indian village and Blake
began to speculate upon the probability of their finding its
inhabitants at home. He understood that the Stonies wandered about,
and he realized with uneasiness that it would be singularly unfortunate
if they were away on a hunting trip.

At last, after spending all of one blustering day laboriously climbing
the rough but gently rising slope of a long divide, they camped on a
high tableland, and l