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the trail, put on her snowshoes, and shuffled her way across this valley, which opened as she proceeded. She hoped that over the ridge she would find Trafford, and scanned the sky for the faintest discoloration of a fire, but there was none. That seemed odd to her, but the wind was in her face, and perhaps it beat the smoke down. Then as her eyes scanned the hummocky ridge ahead, she saw something, something very intent and still, that brought her heart into her mouth. It was a big gray wolf, standing with back haunched and head down, watching and scenting something beyond. Marjorie had an instinctive fear of wild animals, and it still seemed dreadful to her that they should go at large, uncaged. She suddenly wanted Trafford violently, wanted him by her side. Also, she thought of leaving the trail, going back to the bushes. But presently her nerve returned. In the wastes one did not fear wild beasts, one had no fear of them. But why not fire a shot to let him know she was near? The beast flashed round with an animal's instantaneous change of pose, and looked at her. For a couple of seconds, perhaps, woman and brute regarded one another across a quarter of a mile of snowy desolation. Suppose it came toward her! She would fire--and she would fire at it. Marjorie made a guess at the range and aimed very carefully. She saw the snow fly two yards ahead of the grisly shape, and then in an instant the beast had vanished over the crest. She reloaded, and stood for a moment waiting for Trafford's answer. No answer came. "Queer!" she whispered, "queer!"--and suddenly such a horror of anticipation assailed her that she started running and floundering through the snow to escape it. Twice she called his name, and once she just stopped herself from firing a shot. Over the ridge she would find him. Surely she would find him over the ridge! She now trampled among rocks, and there was a beaten place where Trafford must have waited and crouched. Then on and down a slope of tumbled boulders. There came a patch where he had either thrown himself down or fallen; it seemed to her he must have been running. Suddenly, a hundred feet or so away, she saw a patch of violently disturbed snow--snow stained a dreadful color, a snow of scarlet crystals! Three strides and Trafford was in sight. She had a swift conviction that he was dead. He was lying in a crumpled attitude on a patch of snow between [v]convergent rocks, and the lyn
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