and--it's my father's country, and I meant to visit it
some day. Whether I shall find out anything more there or not I don't
know."

"Then you must stay with me. That's a point I insist upon. But I must
make my situation clear--though I've been drawn into this matter against
my will, you have my promise, and if ever the time for action comes, I'll
stand by you. But I'll take no part in trapping Clarence Gladwyne into
any admission, nor will I countenance any charge against him unless some
chance supplies you with indisputable evidence."

"Thanks," said Lisle; "I'm agreeable. You stand neutral until I call on
you."

"There are two more questions, and then we'll let the subject drop. Why
didn't you make this search earlier? Why didn't Gladwyne rearrange the
caches afterward? He went back, you know."

"They're easily answered. It was some time before I heard of Vernon's
death and met the Hudson Bay man in Victoria--I'd been away in the North.
Gladwyne had the rescue party with him when he went back; he couldn't
replace the provisions in the cache on this side without their knowing
it, and I don't suppose he could have crossed the river to the other
cache. Now we'll talk of something else."

They started again the next morning, and instead of leaving the river for
the Hudson Bay post, which stood farther back into the wilderness, they
held on down-stream, though they afterward regretted this when their
provisions once more grew scanty. There was now sharp frost at nights;
fangs of ice stretched out behind the boulders and crackling sheets of it
gathered in the slacker eddies along the bank. What mattered more was
that the portages were frequent, and carrying the canoe over rock coated
with frozen spray became dangerous as well as difficult, and Nasmyth
working on short rations began to feel the strain. It was only since he
had entered that inhospitable region that he had ever been compelled to
go without his dinner; and now breakfast and supper were sternly
curtailed. When they were stopped for two days by a blinding snowstorm he
grew anxious, and his uneasiness had increased when some time afterward
they made their evening meal of a single flapjack each. He could readily
have eaten a dozen of the thin, flat cakes. The duck they had shot every
now and then since crossing the divide had gone; they had not seen a
trout since the cold set in; and there did not appear to be any salmon in
the river.

After breakfast the n