and a handful of tea.

Before they started Whaley drew Jessie aside. "Can't say how long
we'll be gone. Maybe two days--or three. You'll have to make out with
what you've got till we get back." He hesitated a moment, then his
cold, hard eyes held fast to hers. "Maybe only one of us will come
back. Keep your eyes open. If there's only one of us--and it's
West--don't let him get into the house. Shoot him down. Take his
snowshoes and the team. Follow the creek down about five miles, then
strike southwest till you come to Clear Lake. You know your way home
from there."

Her dark eyes dilated. "Do you think he means to--to--?"

The man nodded. "He's afraid of me--thinks I mean to set the police on
his trail. If he can he'll get rid of me. But not yet--not till we've
got a couple of caribou. I'll be watching him all the time."

"How can you watch him while you're hunting?"

He lifted his shoulders in a shrug. It was quite true that West could
shoot him in the back during the hunt. But Whaley knew the man pretty
well. He would make sure of meat before he struck. After the sled was
loaded, Whaley did not intend to turn his back on the fellow.

Jessie had not been brought up in the North woods for nothing. She had
seen her brother Fergus make many a rabbit snare. Now she contrived
to fashion one out of some old strips of skin she found in the cabin.
After she had bent down a young sapling and fastened it to a fallen
log, she busied herself making a second one.

Without snowshoes she did not find it possible to travel far, but she
managed to shoot a fox that adventured near the hut in the hope of
finding something to fill its lean and empty paunch.

Before leaving, Whaley had brought into the house a supply of wood,
but Jessie added to this during the day by hauling birch poles from
the edge of the creek.

Darkness fell early. The girl built up a roaring fire piled the wood
up against the door so that nobody could get in without waking her.
The rifle lay close at hand. She slept long and soundly. When she
shook the drowsiness from her eyes, the sun was shining through the
window.

She breakfasted on stew made from a hindquarter of fox. After she had
visited her snares and reset one that had been sprung, she gathered
balsam boughs for a bed and carried them to the house to dry before
the fire. Whaley had left her a small hatchet, and with this she began
to shape a snowshoe from a piece of the puncheon floor. All day s