ought to go on to the fort with
Braithwaite's party, and not down into the danger zone, where
anything may happen to you."

"I know it, dear boy," Jean answered, firmly. "But I can't leave
father as sick as that to the tender care of a lot of fighting
trappers. Can't you see my position? He's all alone there, and I'd
like to know what kind of a daughter I'd be to turn my back and
travel the other way!"

Donald ceased to resist, for he realized she was taking the only
course open to a girl of courage and spirit.

"So, we travel southwest instead of northwest to-morrow," she mused,
after a while.

"Right into the deuce's own kettle of trouble," prophesied Donald.
"But now, princess, we had better turn in, for the going will be
hard."

Two hours before dawn, both camps were astir. Braithwaite and
Donald, both in need of something, met by the former's camp-fire,
and bargained. Because of fast traveling, the sick-train had no
fresh meat; McTavish had no firearms. In ten minutes, a goodly
supply of frozen rabbits had been packed on the north-bound train,
and Donald once more caressed the butt of a revolver with one hand
and the stock of a rifle with the other. He had promised to return
them as soon as possible, along with the pocket compass that one
man had yielded up.

The queer little sled that Mistisi hauled became the object of much
wit, but it held the pack well, and, shortly before sunrise, the
parties waved each other farewell, as they drew farther and farther
apart. Just previous to starting the trains, McTavish had drawn
Braithwaite aside, and requested silence for himself and men in
regard to the secret he had discovered, out of regard to Jean.

"Everything will be all right in a few days, and when we reach Fort
Severn again you can talk all you wish, for then we'll have been
married," Donald said. Braithwaite agreed without hesitation. He
was a middle-aged man who, despite his roughness, had a great
fondness for Jean; for a daughter of his, had she lived, would now
have been the same age.

Mistisi, with a hoarse bark of joy, leaped into the traces so
vigorously that Jean and Donald on their snowshoes had great ado
to keep up with him. The wind had not yet melted the crust, and
for three hours they made very fast time.

The distance to Sturgeon Lake Braithwaite had verified as being
fifty miles. He had also given McTavish explicit directions where
to find the camp of the men from Fort Severn, outlining