ake and trap the marten and the mink.

"When the sun grows strong, and drives away the Spirit of the Frost,
Mookoomahn will travel northward to the Lake of the Beaver. There he
will find Sishetakushin and the woman to welcome him. He will take his
food from the waters as he travels.

"The maiden will remain in the lodge of White Brother of the Snow.
Sishetakushin gives her to White Brother of the Snow. She is his.
White Brother of the Snow is of our people. He will be glad, and the
maiden will be glad. White Brother of the Snow has white man's food in
great store. Mookoomahn will not be hungry."

"Mookoomahn will do as Sishetakushin directs," answered Mookoomahn.

For a time all smoked in silence, then Sishetakushin resumed:

"Of the dried meat on the toboggan Mookoomahn and those who are with
him will eat but once during each sun. They will eat little. If they
eat much, the meat will soon be gone, and the Spirit of Starvation
will overtake them and destroy them."

"Mookoomahn and those that are with him will do as Sishetakushin
directs," said Mookoomahn.

A series of signs and pantomime conveyed to Shad the substance of
Sishetakushin's remarks. He understood that on the morrow the party
was to separate. That he with Mookoomahn and Manikawan were to return
to the Great Lake, and that they had been cautioned to husband their
provisions.

He surveyed the small bundle of jerked venison with misgivings. Even
with one light meal a day he calculated that it could not last them
above three weeks. Their journey from the cache on the Great Lake to
their present position had consumed a month, including a period of one
week when they were stormbound.

Should they be fortunate and encounter no storms, the food, sparingly
doled out, might serve to sustain them. If storms delayed them, it
certainly would not.

In any case their lives must hang in the balance until the cache was
reached, unless game were encountered in the meantime, which seemed
highly improbable.

A meagre meal was served at an early hour the following morning. As
usual, camp was broken long before day, and then came the farewells.

The parting between Sishetakushin and Mookoomahn was affecting, that
between the women more stoical. Shad regretfully shook the hands of
the old Indian and his wife. They had been friends to him, and he had
no expectation that he should ever see them again.

Then Shad and his companions turned southward into the wide waste