s useless to search these
cabins; they were too near civilization. Besides, if Ruggam had left
the freight at Norwall on the eastern side of Haystack at noon, he
had thirty miles to travel before reaching the territory from which
she was starting. So she skirted the abandoned quiet of the clearing,
laid the snowshoes properly down before her and bound the thongs
securely about her ankles.

She had plenty of time to think of Ruggam as she padded along. He
had no snowshoes to aid him, unless he had managed to secure a pair
by burglary, which was improbable. So it was not difficult to
calculate about where she should begin watching for him. She
believed he would keep just off the main trail to avoid detection,
yet take its general direction in order to secure shelter and
possible food from the mountain buildings. When she reached the
country in which she might hope to encounter him, she would zigzag
across that main trail in order to pick up his foot-tracks if he had
passed her undetected. In that event she would turn and follow. She
knew that the snow was falling too heavily to continue in such
volume indefinitely; it would stop as suddenly as it had started.

The hours of the night piled up. The silent, muffling snowfall
continued. And Cora McBride began to sense an alarming weariness. It
finally dawned upon her that her old-time vigour was missing. The
strength of youth was hers no longer. Two experiences of motherhood
and no more exercise than was afforded by the tasks of her household,
had softened her muscles. Their limitations were now disclosed.

The realization of those limitations was accompanied by panic. She
was still many miles even from Blind Brook Cabin, and her limbs were
afire from the unaccustomed effort. This would never do. After
pauses for breath that were coming closer and closer together, she
set her lips each time grimly. "Tomboy Allen" had not counted on
succumbing to physical fatigue before she had climbed as far as
Blind Brook. If she were weakening already, what of those many miles
on the other side?

Tuesday the twenty-eighth of October passed with no tidings of
Ruggam's capture. The Holmes boy was fatally shot by a rattleheaded
searcher near Five-Mile Pond, and distraught parents began to take
thought of their own lads missing from school. Adam MacQuarry broke
his leg near the Hell Hollow schoolhouse and was sent back by
friends on a borrowed bobsled. Several ne'er-do-wells, long on
impu