en proven. For moss only grows on
the shady side of trees, and in the far northland this is the north
side, the sun rising almost directly in the south, except during
the summer months.

With the north to the left, McTavish passed his pack-strap about
his forehead, and started on the weary march. He knew that somewhere
before him was Beaver Lake, and he remembered that there were two
or three trappers along its shores. Just where they were, he could
not specify, for his private map had been taken from him at the
time his pack was made up. If they were loyal to the Company, he
had a bare chance of reaching them; if, as he supposed, they belonged
to the brotherhood--He did not finish out the thought. He was
certain they were not loyal, else his exile would have been south
instead of north.

As he toiled along, foxes whisked from his path, their splendid
brushes held straight behind them; snow-bunting and chattering
whiskey-jacks scattered at his approach. Clever rabbits, their long
ears laid flat, a dull gleam in their half-opened eyes, impersonated
snow-covered stumps under a thicket of bristling shrubs.

With every hour, Donald thanked Providence that he had not heard
the howl of a traveling wolf-pack, for a man well armed is no match
for these ham-stringing villains once they catch him away from his
fire, and a man with only two knives has his choice of starvation
in a tree, or quick death under the gleaming fangs.

A little after noon, the wanderer reached a ravine, and stopped to
make tea in its shelter. Above him, and leaning out at a precarious
angle, a pine-tree, heavily coated with snow, seemed about to plunge
downward from the weight of its white burden. Taking care to avoid
the space beneath it, the man built his little fire, and boiled
snow-water. He ate nothing now, having reduced his food to a living
ration morning and evening. Having drunk the steaming stuff, he
was about to return the tin cup to the pack when a rustling, sliding
sound aroused him. He turned in time to see a great mass of snow
from a tree higher up fall full upon the overloaded head of the
protruding pine. The latter quivered for a moment under the impact,
and then, with a loud snapping of branches and muffled tearing of
roots, fell crashing to the crusted snow beneath, leaving a gaping
wound in the earth.

McTavish looked with interest. Then, his jaw dropped, and his eyes
widened in terror, for, bursting out of the hole, frothing wi