present, Sturgeon
Lake was out of the question for Donald. He would attend to that
later. Just now, Jean was in danger of worse things than death,
and needed him. He would devote his attention entirely to her.

All that night, Rainy, McTavish, and the dogs toiled like
galley-slaves, not sure of their exact direction, but aware that
they were taking a general southerly course away from the fort.
Morning found them fully ten miles on their way, with no back trail,
and the blizzard lessening perceptibly. It did not matter now. Their
tracks would be taken for those of a trapper running his line.

They halted for breakfast in the lee of a bluff, just as a muddy
light made itself apparent.

"Shall we rest now, Captain?" asked Rainy.

But Donald said no, and told the old servant his reasons and his
plans. An hour's inactivity represented to him a hundred hideous
possibilities. They must travel fast in the general direction of
Sturgeon Lake, and try to pick up the trail of Maria, the squaw...
So, after an hour, they pressed on again, finding easier traveling
and making better time.

That night they came to a little lake, perhaps a mile wide, and on
the opposite shore discerned a wretched shanty. They decided to
camp here, for the dogs were weak with exhaustion. Rainy attended
to the unharnessing of the animals and the unpacking of the sledge,
while Donald went out to cut wood for the fire and boughs to sleep
on. When he returned and entered the cabin, he found the Indian
examining something closely. It proved to be a charred ember. Rainy
fingered it and smelled it, and finally announced that it was not
more than a day old. The two then went outside, and circled slowly
about the shanty.

Here, forty miles from Fort Severn, the blizzard had been light,
and the snowfall trifling. Presently, they uncovered faint tracks
leading away southwest, and judged, from the edge of the crust
where the sledge had occasionally broken through, that they were
not older than thirty-six hours.

Once more, the mania for travel seized McTavish, and he was all
for setting out on the trail that night. But Peter Rainy restrained
him, showing him the folly of such action, since both dogs and men
were unfit for work.

In the cabin, at one time, there had been a bunk. The flat shelf
still projected out from the wall. Donald entered with an armful
of spruce boughs, and threw them on the bunk. While he was arranging
them to a semblance of smoothn