for you every time we stop,
telling you what time we passed. If you don't overtake us to-night or
to-morrow, I'll leave more grub for you. If we don't catch them in a day
or so," he added with a look at the remaining horses, "we'll all be in
the same boat again."

It was a grim, brusque leave-taking. The boy averted his head as they
left him, to hide the look of despair in his eyes. He knew what the
lowering, wintry clouds portended on the prairie; and in his heart it
was a final farewell that he bade them. But he kept his chin up, and
strode manfully after.

Garth did not suspect what was passing in his mind; the city man had
never seen a snowstorm on the prairie. Topping every rise, he looked
back, and waved his hat at the plodding figure, slightly bent under the
weight of his pack.

"He's tough! He'll come through all right!" he said to Rina more than
once--perhaps because he needed secretly to reassure himself.

Rina, preoccupied with her own heavy thoughts, did not seem to care
either way.

About ten o'clock they descended into a considerable coulee whose stony
bed still contained some standing pools. Here, by the water, Grylls's
party had encamped for the night; and the ashes of their fire were still
warm. From the extent of the trampling in the mud, it was clear the
whole party had made a rendezvous here; and beyond the coulee, even
Garth had no difficulty in following the trail of the fourteen horses
over the turf. He rode ahead now; consulting his compass, he saw that
the way always led due northwest.

Some time later his eye was attracted by a splash of white in the grass.
Throwing himself off his horse, he pounced upon it. It was a plain
little square of linen; and in the border was printed in small neat
characters "N. Bland." The find nearly unmanned him; he fancied the
scrap of linen was still damp with her tears; and the old madness of
desperation surged over him again. He forced his weary horse into a
gallop. Rina indifferently followed.

Pretty soon the snow began to fall in large, wet flakes, drifting down
as idly and erratically as the opening notes of one who dreams at the
piano--large flakes falling direct to the ground and lingering there
like measured notes; and little white coveys suddenly eddying hither and
thither, like aimless runs up and down the keyboard.

Rina lifted her brown face to the darkening sky. "We better go back to
the coulee," she called after Garth.

He frowned. "Non