k when they had finished, and Lane made a gesture
of relief.

"Well," he said, "that's done and he'll lie safely there. Rough on
him, but it's a hard country and many a good man has left his bones in
it. I guess we'll get back to camp."

They crossed the snow in silence, trailing the empty sledge and for a
time after they reached camp nobody spoke. Lane sat near the fire
where the light fell upon the book in which he wrote with a pencil held
awkwardly in his mittened hand, while Blake watched him and mused. He
had no cause to regret Clarke's death, but he felt some pity for the
man. Gifted with high ability he had, through no fault of his own,
been driven out of a profession he was keenly interested in and made an
outcast. His subsequent life had been a hard and evil one, but it had
ended in a tragic manner and, what made this more impressive, Blake and
his companions had narrowly escaped his fate. In spite of the cheerful
fire, the camp had a lonely air, and Blake shivered as he glanced at
the gleaming snow and dusky trees that shut it in. There was something
in the desolate North that daunted him.

Harding's reflections also centred on the dead man, and he had food for
thought. There was a mystery to be explained, and he imagined that he
had a clue to it in his pocket, though he could not follow it up for
the present. He waited with some anxiety until Lane closed his book.

"Now," said the Sergeant, "there are one or two points I want
explained, and as you know the man, it's possible you can help me. How
did he come to be here with only about three days' rations?"

"I can answer that," said Harding. "He was in the habit of staying at
the Indian village we told you of. We saw tracks coming from it when
we were there the day before the blizzard began."

"A white man's tracks? Why did you go to the village?"

"I believe they were," Blake replied. "We went to look for provisions
and didn't get them, because the place was empty."

"Then how do you account for the fellow's being there alone?"

"I can't account for it," Blake said quietly.

Lane turned to Harding, who had a theory but was not prepared to
communicate it to the police.

"It's certainly curious," he remarked.

"We'll start for the village to-morrow."

"As the Indians are away, there won't be much to be learned," Benson
suggested.

"They may have come back. Anyway, it's my business to find out all I
can."

Soon afterwards they