no second bidding, but began to shamble off
across the snow towards his encampment. The two men watched him go, in
silence for a little time, and then Stane spoke.

"This lake of the Little Moose, where is it?"

"About sixteen miles to zee East. It ees known to me. A leetle lak'
desolate as hell, in zee midst of hills. We weel go there, an' find dis
white man an' Mees Yardely."

"We must make speed or the man may be gone," responded Stane.

"Oui, I know! We weel travel through zee night. There be two ways
thither, the one through zee woods an' zee oder between zee hills. Zee
way of zee woods ees zee mos' easy, but dat of zee hills ees shorter.
We weel take dat, an' maybe we give Chigmok and his white man one
surprise."

Under the light of the stars, and helped by the occasional flashing
light of the aurora, they travelled up the lake for some distance, then
leaving its surface they turned abruptly eastward, following an
unbroken trail through a country which began rapidly to alter in
character. The great woods thinned out and the way they followed took
an upward swing, whilst a steady wind with the knife-edge cold of the
North began to blow in their faces. Stane at the gee-pole of the
sledge, bent his head before the sharp particles of ice-like snow that
it brought with it, and grew anxious lest they should be the vanguard
of a storm. But looking up he saw the stars clear overhead, and
guessing that the particles came from the trees and the high ground on
either side of them, his fears left him.

Then a new and very real trouble assailed him. He began to have cramps
in the calves of his legs, and it seemed as if his muscles were tying
themselves into knots. Sharp pains in the groin made it a torture to
lift his feet above the level of the snow; and once or twice he could
have groaned with the pain. But he set his teeth grimly, and endured it
in silence, thinking of the girl moving somewhere ahead in the hands of
a lawless and ruthless man. He knew that the torture he was suffering
was what was known among the voyageurs as _mal de roquette_, induced by
a considerable tramp on snow-shoes after a long spell of inactivity,
and that there was no relief from it, until it should gradually pass
away of its own accord.

The trail was not an easy one, and the dogs whined as they bent to the
collars, but Jean Benard, with a frame of iron and with muscles like
steel-springs marched steadily on, for what to Stane seemed hou