down an' we'd be missin' th' trail in th' dark, but wi'
daylight we must be goin'."

Ed hung his adikey up again. "I were forgettin' th' moon were down.
We'll have t' bide here for daylight," he assented. Then he gritted
his teeth. "That Injun'll have t' suffer for un if he's done foul wi'
Bob."

The remainder of the evening was spent in putting forth conjectures as
to what had possibly befallen Bob. They were much concerned but tried
to reassure themselves with the thought that he might have been
delayed one tilt back for the night, and that Micmac John had done
nothing worse than steal the fur. Nevertheless their evening was
spoiled--the evening they had looked forward to with so much pleasure
and their minds were filled with anxious thoughts when finally they
rolled into their blankets for the night.

Christmas morning came with a dead, searching cold that made the three
men shiver as they stepped out of the warm tilt long before dawn and
strode off in single file into the silent, dark forest. After a while
daylight came, and then the sun, beautiful but cheerless, appeared
above the eastern hills to reveal the white splendour of the world and
make the frost-hung fir trees and bushes scintillate and sparkle like
a gem-hung fairy-land. But the three men saw none of this. Before them
lay a black, unknown horror that they dreaded, yet hurried on to meet.
The air breathed a mystery that they could not fathom. Their hearts
were weighted with a nameless dread.

Their pace never once slackened and not a word was spoken until after
several hours the first tilt came suddenly into view, when Dick said
laconically:

"No smoke. He's not here."

"An' no signs o' his bein' on th' trail since th' storm," added Ed.

"No footin' t' mark un at all," assented Dick. "What's happened has
happened before th' last snow."

"Aye, before th' last snow. 'Twas before th' storm it happened."

Here they took a brief half hour to rest and boil the kettle, and the
remainder of that day and all the next day kept up their tireless,
silent march. Not a track in the unbroken white was there to give them
a ray of hope, and every step they took made more certain the tragedy
they dreaded.

At noon on the third day they reached the last tilt. Bill was ahead,
and when he pushed the door open he exclaimed: "Th' stove's gone!"
Then they found the bag that Micmac John had left there with the fur
in it.

"Now that's Micmac John's bag," said Ed. "W