he repeated, 'old trail easy.' He pointed ahead, 'No
trail!'"

"He meant, I suppose," Hamilton interjected, "that if you doubled on
your tracks the trail would have been broken before, and it would be
easy going."

"That's the bull's-eye, and if a storm did come up we'd have a trail to
follow and not get lost."

"Did you go back?"

"I did not. I figured that while we were about a day's journey to a
settlement either way, we were perhaps an hour nearer where we were
goin' than where we had come from, an' that perhaps the storm would hold
off long enough for us to make it. Those storms last for days,
sometimes, an' we'd have the trip to make anyway, even if we did go
back. Besides, I didn't want to lose the time. 'No, Billy,' I called to
the Siwash, 'go on!'

"I was sorry the minute I said it, because I knew the Siwash thought me
wrong, although, bein' an Indian, of course he never showed a sign. He
started up the dogs without a word. I knew he thought it reckless and
dangerous, but tortures wouldn't have made him say so. In half an hour's
time, I began to be sure he was right."

"Did the storm strike as soon as that?" asked the boy.

"No. If it had, I think I should have gone back. But at the end of that
half-hour, we topped a rise that gave a view of the country ahead an'
showed it to be broken an' bad travelin'. I shouldn't have liked the
look of it at any time, but with a storm brewin' an' the Indian wantin'
to go back, it sure did look ugly. But the faint roarin' of the distant
storm sounded no louder, the sky was no heavier, the air no colder, the
wind no higher,--an' I built my hopes upon a delay in its comin', an'
plunged on. We were makin' good time; the dogs were keepin' up a fast
lick, an' the Indian ahead, workin' to break the trail, was movin' like
a streak. I sure never did see an Indian travel the speed he did. I was
behind, pushin' the sled, an' I had to put out all there was in me. An
hour went by, an' I was just beginnin' to think that we would be able to
cover the greater part of the distance, when a huge white shape rose
from the snow near by, passed in front of the sledge, and disappeared.
I've been scared once in my life. This was that once."

"What was it?" asked Hamilton breathlessly.

"I watched," the Alaskan continued, "an' presently about a hundred yards
away, an' a little to the right of the sled, the snow began to move. I
couldn't feel a breath of wind. But the snow seemed to writhe