s of snow-shoes in the
snow. He pointed to them and drew his companion's attention.

"You see," he said triumphantly, "there has been some one passing
this way just ahead of us. Look here, neche, you just get right on and
don't let me have any more nonsense about the trail."

The Indian shook his head.

"Ow," he grunted. "This little--just little." Then he pointed ahead.
"Big, white--all white. No, no; white-man no come dis way. Bimeby
neche so," and Rainy-Moon made a motion of lying down and sleeping. He
meant that they would get lost and die in the snow.

Grey became angry.

"Get on," he shouted. And Rainy-Moon reluctantly turned and started
his dogs afresh.

The little party ascended the sloping path. The whipping snow lashed
their faces as the wind rushed it up from the ground in rapidly
thickening clouds. The fierce gusts were concentrating into a steady
shrieking blast. A grey cloud of snow, thin as yet, but plainly
perceptible, was in the air. The threat it conveyed was no idle one.
The terror of the blizzard was well known to those people. And they
knew that in a short space they would have to seek what shelter they
might chance to find upon these almost barren mountains.

The white-men tightened the woollen scarves about the storm-collars of
their coats, and occasionally beat their mitted hands against their
sides. The gathering wind was intensifying the cold.

"If this goes on we shall have to make that belt of pinewoods for
shelter," observed Robb Chillingwood practically. "It won't do to take
chances of losing the dogs--and their load--in the storm. What say?"

They had rounded a bend and Grey was watchfully gazing ahead. He did
not seem to hear his companion's question. Suddenly he pointed
directly along the path towards a point where it seemed to vanish
between two vast crags.

"Smoke," he said. And his tone conveyed that he wished his companion
to understand that he, Grey, had been right about the trail, and that
Robb had been wrong. "That's Dougal's store," he went on, after a
slight pause.

Chillingwood looked as directed. He saw the rush of smoke which, in
the rising storm, was ruthlessly swept from the mouth of a piece of
upright stove-pipe, which in the now grey surroundings could just be
distinguished.

"But I thought there was a broad, open trail at Dougal's," he said, at
last, after gazing for some moments at the tiny smoke-stack.

"Maybe the road opens out here," answered Grey we