tting behind him pulling the sled. A few
snowflakes began dancing in the air, and he quickened his steps. He
knew, generally, where the thieves were going, but he wanted their
tracks unobliterated in front of him. The snow fell thicker and
thicker, and it was growing dark, and he was tiring. Even Brave was
stumbling occasionally before Raud stopped, in a hollow among the
pines, to build his tiny fire and eat and feed the dog. They bedded
down together, covered by the same sleeping robes.

When he woke, the world was still black and white and gray in the
early dawn-light, and the robe that covered him and Brave was powdered
with snow, and the pine-branches above him were loaded and sagging.

The snow had completely obliterated the tracks of the four thieves,
and it was still falling. When the sled was packed and the dog
harnessed to it, they set out, keeping close to the flank of the
Ice-Father on their left.

It stopped snowing toward mid-day, and a little after, he heard a
shot, far ahead, and then two more, one upon the other. The first shot
would be the rifle of Vahr Farg's son; it was a single-loader, like
his own. The other two were from one of the light Southron rifles,
which fired a dozen shots one after another. They had shot, or shot
at, something like a deer, he supposed. That was sensible; it would
save their dried meat for the trip across the back of the Ice-Father.
And it showed that they still didn't know he was following them. He
found their tracks, some hours later.

Toward dusk, he came to a steep building-mound. It had fared better
than most of the houses of the ancient people; it rose to twenty times
a man's height and on the south-east side it was almost perpendicular.
The other side sloped, and he was able to climb to the top, and far
away, ahead of him, he saw a tiny spark appear and grow. The fire
could not be more than two hours ahead.

He built no fire that evening, but shared a slab of pemmican with
Brave, and they huddled together under the bearskin robe. The dog fell
asleep at once. For a long time, Raud sat awake, thinking.

At first, he considered resting for a while, and then pressing forward
and attacking them as they slept. He had to kill all of them to regain
the Crown; that he had taken for granted from the first. He knew what
would happen if the Government Police came into this. They would take
one Southron's word against the word of ten Northfolk, and the thieves
would simply