way to the first piece of wet ground, and the trail leads
down to tha' spring tha', and tha' is quite a right smart bit of muddy
swail beyont."

"All right, I'll try it," I exclaimed. But I could not touch my foot on
the ground, and it was not until my guide had made me a crutch of a
forked branch, padded with a piece of fur, that I was able to go limping
along after Big Pete.

We followed the trail left by the Wild Hunter to the spring. The trail
after that was plain, even to my inexperienced eyes; and when we reached
the muddy spot the print of the moccasined feet and the dog-like tracks
of the wolves were distinctly visible.

But look at Big Pete!

As motionless as a statue, with a solemn face he stoops with a rigid
figure pointing to the trail! I hastened to his side and saw that the
moccasin prints ceased in the middle of an open, bare, muddy place and
beyond were nothing but the dog-like tracks of the wolves.

I looked up and all around; there were no overhanging branches that a
man could swing himself upon, no stones that he could leap upon--nothing
but the straggling bunches of ferns; but here in this open spot the Wild
Hunter vanished.

We walked back in silence, for I had nothing to say, and Pete did not
volunteer any further information.

CHAPTER VI

To have one's nose all but broken, both eyes blackened and a twisted
ankle is a sad misfortune wherever it occurs, but when such a thing
happens to a fellow many weary miles from the nearest human habitation
and in a howling wilderness it might be considered anything but
pleasant. Yet, strange as it may appear, among the most pleasant and
precious memories I have stored away in my mind, only to be tapped upon
special occasions, is the memory of the glorious days spent nursing my
bruises and lolling around that far-away camp. Sometimes I listened to
the quaint yarns of my unique and interesting guide or idly watched the
changing colors and effects which the sun and the atmosphere produced on
the snow-capped mountains of Darlinkel's Park. I made friends with our
little neighbors the rock-chuck, whose home was in the base of the cliff
back of the spring, and became intimate with the golden chipmunk and its
pretty little black and white cousin, the four-striped chipmunk, both of
which were common and remarkably tame about camp.

Back of the camp in the dark shade of the evergreens there was a bark
mound composed entirely of the fragments of the con