his death.

Having pulled the body aside and heaped branches against the log, he
rekindled the fire. In the light which it cast he could see the
blurred trail of Spurling, where he had crawled to and from the cabin;
also he could see the tracks which the slayer's snowshoes had left as
he strode away through the forest following the portage. He stooped
and examined them. By so doing he learnt a new fact--that the man who
had done the deed was of Indian blood, for the toes of his footprints
inclined to turn inwards, and in carrying his feet forward he had kept
them closer together than does a white man; also he judged that he was
lightly built, for the snow beneath his steps was not much crushed.

So Beorn was not the culprit, nor was his phantom-self from the
Klondike. He thought of Eyelids; but Eyelids was a tall man and his
stride ought to have been longer. That which he had witnessed in the
mirage led him to believe that the act had been premeditated, and
therefore had some strong motive; either it had been done for the
reward or for the sake of theft.

He looked round for Spurling's sled and found it in the cabin; it was
still loaded--the gold had not been touched. He was puzzled. If theft
was not the object, why had the body been left? Without its production
or some part of it that was recognisable, the thousand dollars would
not be awarded. The best way to solve the mystery was to follow up the
murderer; and, if he were to do that, there was no time to lose.

Dragging the remains into the cabin, he made fast the door, that the
wolves might not destroy them; he would care for them on his homeward
journey--if he survived to come back. Harnessing the four grey huskies
into his sled, since they were the freshest, he set out across the
portage. Turning his head, as he entered the forest, he took one last
look at the deserted camp. The fire, burning brightly, with no one to
sit by it, added the final touch to the general aspect of melancholy.
Wailing through the darkness the huskies wandered; and in the
background, when the flames shot up, appeared the crosses, bending one
toward another, which marked the sleeping-places of men who, years
since, had lived and suffered, and obtained their rest.

Beneath the trees, the gloom was so heavy that he could see nothing;
but on coming out on to the banks of the river on the other side he
again picked up the murderer's trail. It led up the Last Chance in a
south-westerly dire