ell as his bleeding feet the march went on. Then just before
dark he had a glimpse of a wide valley fading into the blue distance
with water shining in its midst and grey blurs of willows here and
there. The prospect, however, faded swiftly from his sight, and he
found himself limping across a stony ridge into a belt of drifting
mist. Half an hour afterwards he threw himself down exhausted beside a
fire in a sheltered hollow.

Late at night they stopped a few minutes to listen and look about on
the outskirts of the Indian village. Thick willows stretched close up
to it with mist that moved before a light wind drifting past them; and
the blurred shapes of conical tepees showed dimly through the vapour.
The night was dark but still, and Harding thought a sound would carry
some distance, but while he felt his heart beating there was nothing to
be heard. He had seen dogs about the Indian encampments farther south
and was horribly afraid of hearing a warning bark, but nothing broke
the silence and he supposed that Clarke's friends were unable to find
food enough for sledge-teams. This was reassuring, because the odds
against him were heavy enough, knowing, as he did, that the Indian's
sense of hearing is remarkably keen.

Feeling that his magazine pistol was loose, he signed to his guide and
they moved cautiously forward. The ground was fortunately clear and
their footsteps made little noise, though now and then tufts of dry
grass which Harding trod upon rustled with what seemed to him alarming
distinctness. Still nobody challenged them and reaching the centre of
the village they stopped again. The nearest of the tepees was only
thirty or forty yards away, though others ran back into the mist, and
as Harding stood listening with tingling nerves he clearly recognized
the difficulty of his enterprise. In the first place, there was
nothing to indicate which tent Clarke occupied, and it was highly
undesirable that Harding should choose the wrong one and rouse an
Indian from his slumbers. Then it was possible that the man shared a
tepee with some of his hosts, in which case Harding would place himself
at his mercy by entering it. Clarke was a dangerous man, and his Stony
friends were people with rudimentary ideas and barbarous habits.
Harding glanced at his guide, but the man stood very still, and he
could judge nothing about his feelings from his attitude. Pulling
himself together with an effort, Harding went on.