his teeth and kept moving.

None the less he was glad to see the empty sled. He tumbled on and let
the others do the work.

At camp he scraped the snow away with a shoe while Morse cut spruce
boughs and chopped wood for the fire.

Beresford suffered a good deal from his knee that night. He did not
sleep much, and when day came it was plain he could not travel. The
camp-site was a good one. There was plenty of wood, and the shape of
the draw in which they were located was a protection from the cold
wind. The dogs would be no worse for a day or two of rest. The
travelers decided to remain here as long as might be necessary.

Tom went hunting. He brought back a bag of four ptarmigan late in
the afternoon. Fried, they were delicious. The dogs stood round in
a half-circle and caught the bones tossed to them. Crunch--
crunch--crunch. The bones no longer were. The dogs, heads cocked
on one side, waited expectantly for more tender tidbits.

"Saw deer tracks. To-morrow I'll have a try for one," Morse said.

The lame man hobbled down to the lake next day, broke the ice, and
fished for jack pike. He took back to camp with him all he could
carry.

On the fourth day his knee was so much improved that he was able to
travel slowly. They were glad to see that night the lights of Fort
Desolation, as one of the Mounted had dubbed the post on account of
its loneliness.

CHAPTER XXXIV

THE MAN-HUNTERS READ SIGN

In the white North travelers are few and far. It is impossible for one
to pass through the country without leaving a record of his progress
written on the terrain and in the minds of the natives. The fugitive
did not attempt concealment. He had with him now an Indian guide and
was pushing into the Barren Lands. There was no uncertainty about his
movements. From Fort Chippewayan he had swung to the northwest in the
line of the great frozen lakes, skirting Athabasca and following the
Great Slave River to the lake of the same name. This he crossed at the
narrowest point, about where the river empties into it, and headed for
the eastern extremity of Lake La Martre.

On his heels, still far behind, trod the two pursuers, patient,
dogged, and inexorable. They had left far in the rear the out-forts of
the Mounted and the little settlements of the free traders. Already
they were deep in the Hudson's Bay Company trapping-grounds. Ahead of
them lay the Barrens, stretching to the inlets of the Arctic Ocean.

The days w