y. This was where
the red strain in him told. All Indians have a superstitious awe of the
insane. The sign at the end of the letter was for mountains, of course.
The word, no doubt, was beyond Mary's spelling. What care and
circumspection must have gone to the writing and the launching of the
note! It must all have been done while Imbrie slept.

Stonor applied himself to his paddle again with a better heart. After
two hours more he came to their camping-place of the night before. It
was a spot designed by Nature for a camp, with a little beach of clean
sand below, and a grove of willow and birch above. Stonor landed to see
what tell-tale signs they had left behind them.

He saw that they were in a dug-out: it had left its furrow in the sand
where it was pulled up. He saw the print of Clare's little common-sense
boot in the sand, and the sight almost unmanned him; Mary's track was
there too, that he knew well, and Imbrie's; and to his astonishment
there was a fourth track unknown to him. It was that of a small man or a
large woman. Could Imbrie have persuaded one of the Kakisas to accompany
him? This was all he saw. He judged from the signs that they had about
five hours' start of him.

From this point the character of the country began to change. The
river-banks became higher and wooded; there were outcroppings of rock
and small rapids. Stonor saw from the tracks alongshore that where the
current was swift they had towed the dug-out up-stream, but he had to
stick to his paddle. Though he put forth his best efforts all day he
scarcely gained on them, for darkness came upon him soon after he had
passed the place where they spelled in mid-afternoon.

On the next day in mid-morning he was brought to stand by a fork in the
river. There was nothing to tell him which branch to choose, for the
current was easy here and the trackers had re-embarked. Both branches
were of about equal size: one came from the south-east, one from due
east; either might reach to the mountains if it was long enough. Stonor
had pondered on the map of that country, but on it the Swan River was
only indicated as yet by a dotted line. All that was known of the stream
by report was that it rose in the Rocky Mountains somewhere to the north
of Fort Cheever, and, flowing in a north-westerly direction, roughly
parallel with the Spirit, finally emptied into Great Buffalo Lake.
Stonor remembered no forks on the map.

He was about to choose at random, when