ly left this morning," supplemented Dick, examining the
frost-crystals in the new-cut trail.

Without wasting further attention, they set out in pursuit. The girl
followed. Dick turned to her.

"I think we shall catch him very soon," said he, in Ojibway.

The girl's face brightened and her eyes filled. The simple words
admitted her to confidence, implied that she, too, had her share in the
undertaking, her interest in its outcome. She stepped forward with
winged feet of gladness.

Luckily a light wind had sprung up against them. They proceeded as
quietly and as swiftly as they could. In a short time they came to a
spot where Jingoss had boiled tea. This indicated that he must have
started late in the morning to have accomplished only so short a
distance before noon. The trail, too, became fresher.

Billy, the regular lead dog, on this occasion occupied his official
position ahead, although, as has been pointed out, he was sometimes
alternated with the hound, who now ran just behind him. Third trotted
Wolf, a strong beast, but a stupid; then Claire, at the sledge,
sagacious, alert, ready to turn the sledge from obstruction. For a
long, time all these beasts, with the strange intelligence of animals
much associated with man, had entertained a strong interest in the
doings of their masters. Something besides the day's journey was in the
wind. They felt it through their keen instinctive responsiveness to the
moods of those over them; they knew it by the testimony of their bright
eyes which told them that these investigations and pryings were not all
in an ordinary day's travel. Investigations and pryings appeal to a
dog's nature. Especially did Mack, the hound, long to be free of his
harness that he, too, might sniff here and there in odd nooks and
crannies, testing with that marvelously keen nose of his what his
masters regarded so curiously. Now at last he understood from the
frequent stops and examinations that the trail was the important thing.
From time to time he sniffed of it deeply, saturating his memory with
the quality of its effluvia. Always it grew fresher. And then at last
the warm animal scent rose alive to his nostrils, and he lifted his head
and bayed.

The long, weird sound struck against the silence with the impact of a
blow. Nothing more undesirable could have happened. Again Mack bayed,
and the echoing bell tones of his voice took on a strange similarity to
a tocsin of warning. Rustling and crackl