ir
faces.

At length the leader stopped and raised his hand. Standing still, they
heard a muffled sound that might have been made by the fall of hoofs
ahead, and they hastily turned toward a clump of spruce. The trees
concealed them and the sound grew nearer, until they could see the dim
shapes of men and horses moving through the driving flakes. Then they
left cover and spread out across the creek. The team stopped and an angry
voice came out of the snow:

"What's this? What do you want?"

"Yon sled and its load," the leader concisely replied.

"Stand clear!" cried the voice. "Go right ahead, Bill!"

A man sprang forward and seized the near horse's head.

"Stop where you are!" he cried. "We're not looking for trouble, but we
want the sled!"

Two others ran out from behind the horses, but the leader of the
expedition raised his hand.

"It's six to three, Mitcham, and that's long odds. Ye'll get sled and
team when ye claim them in camp. Lift a fist and ye'll give the boys the
excuse they're wearying for. I'll ask nothing better."

Mitcham turned to his companions.

"They've got us, boys. Leave them to it," he said.

"Lead the horses, Kermode," directed one of the party, and the team moved
on again while the leader, walking beside the sled, hastily examined its
load. Several small cases lay beneath a tarpaulin.

What became of Mitcham and his friends did not appear, for they were left
behind in the snow; but the night grew wilder and the cold more biting.
For minutes together they could see nothing through the cloud of flakes
that drove furiously past them; it was hard to urge the tired horses
forward through the deeper drifts and all were thankful when they came to
reaches which the savage wind had swept almost clear. They could not,
however, leave the creek without their knowing it, and they had a fringe
of willows, into which they stumbled now and then, as guide. When, at
length, the gorge opened out, there was a high ridge to be crossed, and
they had cause to remember the ascent. The route led up through belts of
brush and between scattered pines, and leaving it inadvertently every now
and then, they got entangled among the scrub. Two of them plodded at the
stumbling horses' heads, four pushed the sled, and at the top of every
steeper slope every one stopped and gasped for breath. It was now near
dawn and they had marched all night after a day of heavy toil.

The ascent made, they went down the hill at