of
reaching home. He asked the Indians at once for permission to
accompany them. There was no objection to this from any of them,
though they told him it would be a tiresome journey, that they would
travel fast, and be back in a few days.

But Bob did not propose to let any chance of meeting white men pass
him, and he hurriedly got his things together for the expedition. He
had no intimation of the name or location of the post they were going
to further than that the Indians told him they were going to Mr.
MacPherson, who was, he felt sure, a Hudson's Bay Company Factor, and
he believed that if he could once reach one of the company's forts a
way would be shown him to get to Eskimo Bay. That night was one of
excitement and anticipation for Bob.

Manikawan seemed to read his thoughts, for the whole evening she
looked troubled, and her eyes were wet when Bob said good-bye to her
in the morning. As the little party turned down upon the river ice, he
looked back once and saw her standing near the wigwam, in the bright
moonlight, her slender figure outlined against the snow, and he waved
his hand to her.

He never knew that for many days afterwards, when the dusk of evening
came, she stole alone out of the wigwam and down the trail where he
had disappeared to watch for his return, nor how lonely she was and
how she brooded over his loss when she knew that she should never see
her White Brother of the Snow again.

XVII

STILL FARTHER NORTH

Bob and the Indians travelled in single file, with Mookoomahn leading,
and kept to the wide, smooth pathway that marked the place where the
river lay imprisoned beneath ice a fathom thick. The wind had swept
away the loose snow and beaten down that which remained into a hard
and compact mass upon the frozen river bed, making snow-shoeing here
much easier than in the spruce forest that lay behind the willow brush
along the banks. The Indians walked with the long rapid stride that is
peculiar to them, and which the white man finds hard to simulate, and
good traveller though he was Bob had to adopt a half run to keep their
pace. They drew but two lightly loaded toboggans, and unencumbered by
the wigwam and other heavy camp equipment, and with no trailing squaws
to hamper their speed, an even, unbroken gait was maintained as mile
after mile slipped behind them.

Not a breath of air was stirring, and the absolute quiet that
prevailed was broken only by the moving men and the r