. Overcome with fatigue, fear, and disappointment, she sat down on a
wreath of snow and wept. But she felt that her situation was much too
serious to permit of her wasting time in vain regrets, so she started up
and endeavoured to retrace her steps. This, however, was now a matter
of difficulty. The snow fell so thickly that her footsteps were almost
obliterated, and she could not see ten yards before her. After
wandering about for a few minutes in uncertainty, she called aloud to
Chimo, hoping to hear his bark in reply. But all was silent.

Chimo was not, indeed, unfaithful. He heard the cry and responded to it
in the usual way, by bounding in the direction whence it came. His
progress, however, was suddenly arrested by the sledge, which caught
upon and was jammed amongst the rocks. Fiercely did Chimo strain and
bound, but the harness was tough and the sledge immovable. Meanwhile
the wind arose, and although it blew gently, it was sufficient to
prevent Edith overhearing the whining cries of her dog. For a time the
child lost all self-command, and rushed about she knew not whither, in
the anxious desire to find her sledge; then she stopped, and restrained
the pantings of her breath, while with both hands pressed tightly over
her heart, as if she would fain stop the rapid throbbing there, she
listened long and intently. But no sound fell upon her ear except the
sighing of the cold breeze as it swept by, and no sight met her anxious
gaze save the thickly falling snow-flakes.

Sinking on her knees, Edith buried her face in her hands and gave full
vent to the pent-up emotions of her soul, as the conviction was at
length forced upon her mind that she was a lost wanderer in the midst of
that cold and dreary waste of snow.

CHAPTER TWENTY NINE.

A DARK CLOUD OF SORROW ENVELOPS FORT CHIMO.

Three days after the events narrated in the last chapter the fort of the
fur-traders became a place of weeping; for on the morning of that day
Maximus arrived with the prostrate form of Frank Morton, whom he had
discovered alone in the igloo on the lake, and with the dreadful news
that little Edith Stanley was nowhere to be found!

It may be more easily imagined than described the state of mind into
which the parents of the child were thrown; but after the first burst of
emotion was past, Stanley felt that a thorough and immediate search was
the only hope that remained to him of finding his little one alive.
Still, when