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