he silken tress of
hair? What something was it, away down in his soul, that kept urging
him on and on, even after he had gone a mile, and then two miles, in
fruitless search? Rod could not have answered these questions had he
stopped to ask them of himself. He was not superstitious. He did not
believe in dreams. And yet each moment, without apparent reason added
to his conviction that Mukoki had made a mistake, and that Minnetaki
was on the sledge ahead of him.

The country into which he was penetrating grew wilder. Rocky ridges
rose before him, split by rifts and gullies through which the water
must have rushed in torrents in the spring. He listened, and proceeded
more cautiously; and through his mind there flashed a memory of his
thrilling exploration of the mysterious chasm of a few weeks before,
when, in his lonely night camp, he had dreamed of the skeletons. He
was thinking of this when he came around the end of a huge rock which
lay as big as a house in his path. Upon the snow, almost at his feet,
was a sight that froze the blood in his veins. For the second time
that day he gazed upon the distorted features of a dead man. Squarely
across the trail, as the other had lain, was the body of an Indian,
his arms outstretched, his twisted face turned straight up to the
clear sky, the snow about his head glistening a sickening red in the
sun. For a full minute Rod gazed in silent horror on the scene. There
was no sign of a struggle, there were no footprints in the snow. The
man had been killed while upon the sledge, and the only mark he had
made was when he had fallen off.

Who had killed him?

Had Minnetaki saved herself by taking her captor's life?

For a moment Rod was almost convinced that this was so. He examined
the stains in the snow and found that they were still damp and
unfrozen. He was sure that the tragedy had occurred less than an hour
before. More cautiously, and yet swifter than before, he followed the
trail of the sledge, his rifle held in readiness for a shot at
any moment. The path became wilder and in places it seemed almost
inaccessible. But between the tumbled mass of rock the sledge had
found its way, its savage driver not once erring in his choice of the
openings ahead. Gradually the trail ascended until it came to the
summit of a huge ridge. Hardly had Rod reached the top when another
trail cut across that of the sledge.

Deeply impressed in the softening snow were the footprints of a big
b