with hunger, wandered in the snow across the
frozen lake, and put foot upon the island. There the pleasant odor of food
came to his nostrils, and he lifted up his ears. As the pleasant odor came
again his tawny eyes became more ferocious, and the lips curled back from
the rows of cruel, white teeth. He drew his long, lithe body over the
snow, and came to one of the paths. He might have turned back because the
path was strong with the odor of a strange and perhaps powerful creature;
but he was a very hungry, a very large, and a very bold panther, and he
went on.

The path led straight to the cabin, and the panther trod it on noiseless
pads, his eyes glowing, and hunger attacking him all the more fiercely
because, mingled with the strange, new odor now came many odors that he
knew, and all pleasant--odor of buffalo and deer and others--and he was
very, very hungry.

He went down the path to the door of the cabin, and halted a moment there.
A red gleam, a glow from the bed of coals, came through a chink beside the
door, and it filled his heart with terror. He shivered, and fear drew a
low growl from him.

One of the five sleepers inside stirred and sat up. He listened and heard
a heavy breathing at the door. Then he arose, took a brand from the fire,
stepped noiselessly to the door, and, opening it, rushed out, waving the
burning brand in front of him. The panther, stricken with frightful panic,
fled down the path, and then over the lake into the woods on the mainland.
Henry Ware, laughing silently, returned to the cabin and lay down to sleep
again beside his comrades, who had slept on, undisturbed.

CHAPTER XVII

FOOTPRINTS IN THE SNOW

The singular existence of the five in the little hollow in the haunted
island endured much longer. The great cold had come early, and it held the
earth fast in its grasp. The ice grew thicker on the lake beneath the
snow, and winds that would freeze one to the marrow swept over its
surface. Fortunately, there was plenty of fallen wood on the island, and
they never allowed the fire in Hart's furnace to go out. They never built
it up high, but a bed of coals was always smoldering there, sending out
grateful light and heat.

Henry and Ross scouted at intervals, but only as a matter of habit rather
than necessary precaution. They knew that the danger of an attack at such
a time had decreased to the vanishing point. Now Paul became for a while
the central figure of what he calle