Then, with a grunt, they "mushed" the dogs on the back trail, and
left the Hudson Bay man alone for his grapple with the wilderness.

For a time, he stood there dazed. Then, the realization of his doom
rushed upon him, and, in mute desperation, he made a few swift
steps after the departed sledge as though he would overtake it.
But, in a moment, he recovered himself, and went back to where his
pitiful belongings rested on the crusted snow. The stern resolve,
the iron will that had made the McTavishes great, each in his
generation, returned to him, and, without a word, he faced forward
upon the Death Trail.

CHAPTER VI

THE LAST STAND

Morning found the world swathed in a great blanket of white. Snow
that started as Donald made camp had fallen steadily through the
dark hours, so that now rock and windfall and back trail were
obliterated. Even the pines themselves were conical ghosts. As
though he had been dropped from the skies, McTavish stood absolutely
isolated in the trackless waste.

There was light upon the earth, but the leaden clouds diffused it
evenly, so that he could not distinguish east from west, or south
from north. If there had ever been a trail blazed here, the big
snowflakes had long since hidden the notches in the bark.

Mechanically, the man reached into his pack for the compass he
carried. A moment's search failed to reveal it, and he suddenly
stood upright again, cut through with the knowledge that it had
been taken from him.

How should he tell directions? How make progress except in fatal
circles?

Looking up at the snowy pine-tops, he scrutinized them carefully.
Their tips seemed to lean ever so slightly in one direction. Fearful
lest his eyes had deceived him, he closed them for a few moments,
and then looked again. The trees still leaned slightly to the right.
He tried others, with the same result. Good! That was east! Ever
in nature there is the unconscious longing for the life-giving sun,
and it was in yearning toward its point of rising that the trees
betrayed the secret. Here and there, tufts of shrub-growth pointed
through the snow in one direction. That, he knew, should be south,
and yet he must prove it. With his snowshoes, he dug busily at the
base of a tree until he found the roots running into the iron
ground. Circling the trunk, he at last found the growth of moss he
was hunting. He compared it with the pointing tufts of shrub-growth,
and found that his theory had be