ished the work which
I have to do, perhaps when next spring comes, we can take our hunting
trip."

When the spring came it brought Drennen with it into the North Woods.
He knew that the three whom he sought, the four counting Garcia whom he
had not forgotten, might have slipped down across the border and into
the States. But he did not believe that they had done so. The law was
looking for them there, too, and they would stay here until the law had
had time to forget them a little.

Again came long, monotonous months of seeking which were to end as they
had begun. He pushed further north than he had been before, taking
long trails stubbornly, his muscles grown like iron as he drove them to
new tasks. He skirted the Bad Water country, made his way through Ste.
Marie, St. Stephen, Bois du Lac, Haut Verre, Louise la Reine, and
dipped into the unknown region of Sasnokee-keewan. He caught a false
rumour and turned back, threading the Forest d'Enfer, coming again
through Bois du Lac and into Sasnokee-keewan late in August.
Disappointment again, and again he turned toward the Nine Lakes. At
Belle Fortune, the first stop, the last village he would see for many
days, he met Marshall Sothern.

Sothern was standing in front of the village inn, his hand upon the
lead-rope of a sturdy pack mule. The two men looked at each other
intently, Drennen showing no surprise, Sothern experiencing none. It
was the older man who first put out his hand.

"I've been looking for you, Dave," he said quietly. "I'm taking my
vacation, the first in seven years. I've followed you from the
railroad. We're going to take our trip together now."

Drennen nodded.

"I'm glad to see you, sir," he answered quietly.

"Which way are you headed now?" asked Sothern.

"It doesn't matter. I am in no hurry. I was going toward the Nine
Lakes, but . . ."

"You think that they have gone that way?"

Again Drennen nodded; again he failed to manifest any surprise.

"I am not sure," he said. "But the only way to be sure is to go and
find out."

So together father and son packed out of Belle Fortune, headed toward
the Nine Lakes in the heart of the unknown land of Sasnokee-keewan.
Unknown because it is a land of short summers and long, hard winters;
because no man had ever found the precious metals here; because there
is little game such as trappers venture into the far out places to get;
because it is broken, rough, inhospitable. But, for a