f the heights.
"This begins to look like the real thing."

"Maybe some moose," was Philip's rejoinder. "No moose track on de valley
below."

"Hear that?" exclaimed Roy. "Everybody get busy. I reckon we can't go any
farther inland to-night than that heap o' rock way over there." He
pointed to a barren elevation on the already darkening horizon. "You
hunters," he added, indicating Norman and Philip, "ought to spread out
and look for game tracks in the swales to the right and left. But don't
go too far. Work your way in toward those rocks before night. You'll find
us there. Come on, Paul," he added with unusual enthusiasm, considering
that it was rapidly growing colder in the open country, "there's probably
no wood over there. You and I'll get some here and meet the hunters at
the rock pile."

While Norman and the Indian started out, Roy loosened the axe and drew
the sled back into the pine scrub to look for fallen timber. This was a
tedious process and it was even more of a task to load the firewood onto
the sled.

"The tent'll fix us all right," explained Roy as he backed against the
wind and began to dump his firewood on the snow. "But first we've got to
make a camp site. Take off your snowshoes."

Where the wind had been cutting over the tops of the rocks a sort of
vacuum had been formed behind the ridge and into this the snow had been
piled up to a depth of four or five feet. With a snowshoe, each boy
tackled this bank. Soon they had dug a pit in it about ten by ten feet.
By throwing the loose snow around the edge of this they created a wall
about seven feet high.

"Now I'll show you a trick I read about," exclaimed Roy.

From the pine grove on the edge of the plateau he had dragged the slender
trunk of a poplar tree about twelve feet long. This he now threw over the
opening in the snow, making a sort of a ridge pole, and then with Paul's
assistance unrolled the tent and spread it across. While Paul held the
edges of the somewhat awkward canvas in place on top of the snow wall Roy
piled snow on the ends of the canvas and just as it was too dark to see
more the excavation was thoroughly roofed except in one corner where the
irregular canvas did not fit.

"We need that for a chimney opening anyway," exclaimed Roy.

Before a fire could be started, however, there was the sound of a rifle
off to the south, to which Paul responded with a pistol shot. Then the
camp makers carried their wood into the snow house and