d who shall say what thoughts
he thought; what wild schemes of revenge he planned? There was no
outward sign. Just those silent moving lips.

CHAPTER II

MR. ZACHARY SMITH

"Rot, man, rot! I've been up here long enough to know my way about
this devil's country. No confounded neche can teach me. The trail
forked at that bush we passed three days back. We're all right. I wish
I felt as sure about the weather."

Leslie Grey broke off abruptly. His tone was resentful, as well as
dictatorial. He was never what one might call an easy man. He was
always headstrong, and never failed to resent interference on the
smallest provocation. Perhaps these things were in the nature of his
calling. He was one of the head Customs officials on the Canadian side
of the Alaskan boundary. His companion was a subordinate.

The latter was a man of medium height, and from the little that could
be seen of his face between the high folds of the storm-collar of his
buffalo coat, he possessed a long nose and a pair of dark, keen, yet
merry eyes. His name was Robb Chillingwood. The two men were tramping
along on snow-shoes in the rear of a dog-train. An Indian was keeping
pace with the dogs in front; the latter, five in number, harnessed in
the usual tandem fashion to a heavily-laden sled.

"It's no use anticipating bad weather," replied Chillingwood, quietly.
"But as to the question of the trail----"

"There's no question," interrupted Grey, sharply.

"Ah, the map shows two clumps of bush. The trail turns off at one of
them. My chart says the second. I studied it carefully. The
'confounded neche,' as you call him, says 'not yet.' Which means that
he considers it to be the second bush. You say no."

"The neche only knows the trail by repute. You have never been over it
before. I have travelled it six times. You make me tired. Give it a
rest. Perhaps you can make something of those nasty, sharp puffs of
wind which keep lifting the ground snow at intervals."

Robb shrugged his fur-coated shoulders, and glanced up at the sun. It
seemed to be struggling hard to pierce a grey haze which hung over the
mountains. The sundogs, too, could be seen, but, like the sun itself,
they were dim and glowed rather than shone. That patchy wind, so well
known in the west of Canada, was very evident just then. It seemed to
hit the snow-bound earth, slither viciously along the surface, sweep
up a thin cloud of loose surface snow, then drop in an instant