fering any explanation, found himself dancing
up and down upon the rocks in the dizzying sun, waving his hat and
shouting to the Father of the Marionettes. What he shouted he never
knew. And Marc and Edouard both shouted, too. But the master of the Ring
heard them not, or if he heard he paid them no attention. Nearer and
nearer came the Ring, until Bennie could see the gleaming cylinder of
its great steel circle. At a distance of about two miles it swept
through the air over a low ridge, and settled toward the earth in the
direction of Ungava.

"He only goes ten mile maybe," announced Marc confidently. "_Un petit
bout de chemin._ We get there to-night."

On they struggled beside the Rail, but now hope ran high. Bennie sang
and whistled, unmindful of the mosquitoes and black flies that renewed
their attacks with unremitting ferocity. The sun lowered itself into the
pine trees, shooting dazzling shafts through the low branches, and then
sank in a welter of crimson-yellow light. The sky turned gray in the
east; faint stars twinkled through the quivering waves that still shook
from the overheated rocks. It turned cold and the mosquitoes departed.
Hugging the Rail, they staggered on, now over shaking muskeg, now
through thickets of tangled brush, now on great ledges of barren rock,
and then across caribou barrens knee-deep in dry and crackling moss.
Darkness fell and prudence dictated that they should make camp. But in
their excitement they trudged on, until presently a pale glow behind the
dwarfed trees showed that the moon was rising. They boiled the water,
made tea, and cooked some biscuits. Soon they could see to pursue their
way.

"'Most there now," encouraged Marc.

Presently, instead of descending, they found the land was rising again,
and forcing their way through the undergrowth they struggled up a rocky
hillside, perhaps three hundred feet in height. Marc was in the lead,
with Bennie a few feet behind him. As they reached the crest the Indian
turned and pointed to something in front of him that Bennie was unable
to distinguish.

"_Nous sommes arrivees_," he announced.

With his heart thumping from the exertion of the climb, Bennie crawled
up beside his guide and found himself confronted by a strong barbed-wire
entanglement affixed to iron stanchions firmly imbedded in the rocks.
They were on the top of a ridge that dropped away abruptly at their feet
into a valley, perhaps a mile in width, terminating on the