tress became formidably acute, till at length his exertions
defeated their own object, and from sheer exhaustion he headed back to
the camp again. It remains a wonder that he ever found his way. It was
with great difficulty, and only after numberless false clues, that he at
last saw the white tent between the trees, and so reached safety.

Exhaustion then applied its own remedy, and he grew calmer. He made the
fire and breakfasted. Hot coffee and bacon put a little sense and
judgment into him again, and he realized that he had been behaving like
a boy. He now made another, and more successful attempt to face the
situation collectedly, and, a nature naturally plucky coming to his
assistance, he decided that he must first make as thorough a search as
possible, failing success in which, he must find his way into the home
camp as best he could and bring help.

And this was what he did. Taking food, matches and rifle with him, and a
small axe to blaze the trees against his return journey, he set forth.
It was eight o'clock when he started, the sun shining over the tops of
the trees in a sky without clouds. Pinned to a stake by the fire he left
a note in case Defago returned while he was away.

This time, according to a careful plan, he took a new direction,
intending to make a wide sweep that must sooner or later cut into
indications of the guide's trail; and, before he had gone a quarter of a
mile he came across the tracks of a large animal in the snow, and beside
it the light and smaller tracks of what were beyond question human
feet--the feet of Defago. The relief he at once experienced was natural,
though brief; for at first sight he saw in these tracks a simple
explanation of the whole matter: these big marks had surely been left by
a bull moose that, wind against it, had blundered upon the camp, and
uttered its singular cry of warning and alarm the moment its mistake was
apparent. Defago, in whom the hunting instinct was developed to the
point of uncanny perfection, had scented the brute coming down the wind
hours before. His excitement and disappearance were due, of course,
to--to his--

Then the impossible explanation at which he grasped faded, as common
sense showed him mercilessly that none of this was true. No guide, much
less a guide like Defago, could have acted in so irrational a way, going
off even without his rifle ...! The whole affair demanded a far more
complicated elucidation, when he remembered the de