Roger McKay stared back.

"It's a good fire," he mumbled in his hood. "Half an hour and it will
be out. There'll be nothing for Breault to find if this wind keeps up
another two hours--nothing but drift-snow, with no sign of trail or
cabin."

He struck out, leaving the shelter of the ridge. Straight south he
went, keeping always in the open spaces where the wind-swept drift
covered his snowshoe trail almost as soon as it was made. Darkness did
not trouble him now. The open barren was ahead, miles of it, while only
a little to the westward was the shelter of timber. Twice he blundered
to the edge of this timber, but quickly set his course again in the
open, with the wind always quartering at his back. He could only guess
how long he kept on. The time came when he began to count the swing of
his snowshoes, measuring off half a mile, or a mile, and then beginning
over again until at last the achievement of five hundred steps seemed
to take an immeasurable length of time and great effort. Like the ache
of a tooth came the first warning of snowshoe cramp in his legs. In the
black night he grinned. He knew what it meant--a warning as deadly as
swimmer's cramp in deep water. If he continued much longer he would be
crawling on his hands and knees.

Quickly he turned in the direction of the timber. He had traveled three
hours, he thought, since abandoning his cabin to the flames. Another
half hour, with the caution of slower, shorter steps, brought him to
the timber. Luck was with him and he cried aloud to Peter as he felt
himself in the darkness of a dense cover of spruce and balsam. He freed
himself from his entangled snowshoes and went on deeper into the
shelter. It became warmer and they could feel no longer a breath of the
wind.

He unloaded his pack and drew from it a jackpine torch, dried in his
cabin and heavy with pitch. Shortly the flare of this torch lighted up
their refuge for a dozen paces about them. In the illumination of it,
moving it from place to place, he gathered dry fire wood and with his
axe cut down green spruce for the smouldering back-fire that would last
until morning. By the time the torch had consumed itself the fire was
burning, and where Jolly Roger had scraped away the snow from the thick
carpet of spruce needles underfoot he piled a thick mass of balsam
boughs, and in the center of the bed he buried himself, wrapped warmly
in his blankets, and with Peter snuggled close at his side.

Through