e
less arduous and the pace quickened.

"By gar!" cried Benard as they hit the trail, "we get dem now, dey make
zee trail for us."

"Yes," answered Stane, his eyes ablaze with excitement.

A mile and three quarters now separated the two teams, and as they
followed in the trail that the others had to make, their confidence
seemed justified. But nature and man alike were to take a hand and
upset their calculations. In the wind once more there came a smother of
snow. It was severe whilst it lasted, and blotted out all vision of the
team ahead. As it cleared, the two pursuers saw that their quarry had
turned inshore, moving obliquely towards a tree-crowned bluff that
jutted out into the lake. Jean Benard marked the move, and spoke almost
gleefully.

"Dey fear zee snow, an' go to make camp. By zee mass, we get dem like a
wolf in zee trap!"

The sledge they pursued drew nearer the bluff, then suddenly Jean
Benard threw back his head in a listening attitude.

"Hark!" he cried: "what was dat?"

"I heard nothing," answered Stane. "What did you fancy you----"

The sentence was never finished, for borne to him on the wind came two
or three sharp sounds like the cracks of distant rifles. He looked at
his companion.

"The detonation of bursting trees far in the wood," he began, only to
be interrupted.

"Non, non! not zee trees, but rifles, look dere, m'sieu, someting ees
happening."

It certainly seemed so. The sled which had almost reached the bluff,
had swung from it again, and had turned towards the open lake. But now,
instead of three figures, they could see only one; and even whilst they
watched, again came the distant crack of a rifle--a faint far-away
sound, something felt by sensitive nerves rather than anything
heard--and the solitary man left with the sledge and making for the
sanctuary of the open lake, plunged suddenly forward, disappearing from
sight in the snow. Another fusillade, and the sled halted, just as the
two men broke from the cover of the bluff and began to run across the
snow in the direction of it.

"By gar! By gar!" cried Jean Benard in great excitement. "Tings dey
happen. Dere are oder men who want Chigmok, an' dey get heem, too."

Then with a clamouring wind came the snow, blotting out all further
vision of the tragedy ahead. It hurtled about them in fury, and they
could see scarcely a yard in front of them. It was snow that was vastly
different from the large soft flakes of more temper