roke
with all the terrifying fury of the north. The wind shrieked through
the forest and shook the wigwam as though it would tear it away. The
air was filled with a swirling, blinding mass of snow and any one
venturing a dozen paces from the lodge could hardly have found his way
back to it again. For three days the storm lasted, and the Indians
turned these three days into a period of feasting. A big kettle of
bear's meat always hung over the fire, and surrounding it pieces of
the meat were impaled upon sticks to roast. It seemed to Bob as though
the Indians would never have enough to eat.

Finally the storm cleared, and then it was discovered that the
ptarmigans and rabbits, which had been so plentiful and constituted
their chief source of food supply, had disappeared as if by magic. Not
a ptarmigan fluttered before the hunter, and no rabbit tracks broke
the smooth white snow beneath the bushes.

The jerked venison was gone and the only food remaining was the bear
meat. A hurried consultation was held, and it was decided to push on
still farther to the northward in the hope of meeting the invisible
herds of caribou that somewhere in those limitless, frozen barrens
were wandering unmolested.

XVI

ONE OF THE TRIBE

If Bob Gray had held any secret hope that the Indians would eventually
listen to his plea to guide him back to the Big Hill trail it was
mercilessly swept away by the next move, for again they faced steadily
towards the north. Whenever he thought of home a lump came into his
throat, but he always swallowed it bravely and said to himself:

"'Tis wrong now t' be grievin' when I has so much t' be thankful for.
Bill'll be takin' th' silver fox an' other fur out, and when father
sells un 'twill pay for Emily's goin' t' th' doctor. Th' Lard saved me
from freezin', an' I'm well an' th' Injuns be wonderful good t' me.
Maybe some time they'll be goin' back th' Big Hill way--maybe 'twill
be next winter--an' then I'll be gettin' home."

In this manner the hope of youth always conquered, and his desperate
situation was to some extent forgotten in the pictures he drew for
himself of his reunion with the loved ones in the uncertain "Sometime"
of the future.

On and on they travelled through the endless, boundless white, over
wind-swept rocky hills so inhospitably barren that even the snow could
not find a lodgment on them, or over wide plains where the few trees
that grew had been stunted and gnarled int