in their own loss of life. For the outlook was menacing,
and Joshua's knowledge and advice were sincere and authoritative.

And still it snowed. Steadily, persistently, uninterruptedly. There
seemed a permanency about that soft, downward moving mass that foreboded
danger and defeat to any one who remained to dare it further.

And so they started again, half glad to go, half unwilling to leave. It
was the terrible uncertainty that told on them. They shrank from facing
the thought of what it would mean if they didn't find Peter, and forced
themselves to believe that they would meet him.

Their objective point was a trapper's log house on the shore of the
lake.

They reached it, tired, footsore, but full of hope for good news. A
quick glance round the tiny interior, consisting of but two rooms,
showed no smiling-faced Peter.

A few words from Joshua to the trappers gave no cause for rejoicing, and
further conversation and explanation revealed the fact that the
experienced trappers had no doubt as to Peter's fate.

Nor did they blame Joshua in any way. Had he stayed for a longer search,
they averred, there would have been four dead men instead of one.

And then both Shelby and Blair realized that Joshua's expressed
hopefulness of finding Peter safe at the end of their journey was merely
by way of urging them to move on, knowing the result if they did not.

They also realized that he was right. The opinions and assertions of the
experienced trappers could not be gainsaid. The two came to know that
there was but one fate that could have overtaken their comrade and that
there was no hope possible.

If Shelby had a slight feeling that Blair ought to have looked back
oftener, he gave it no voice, for he knew he himself had never looked
back with any idea of watching over Blair. To be sure the last one of
the four was in the most dangerous position, but Peter had come last by
mere chance, and no one had given that point a thought.

They surmised something must have disabled him. Perhaps a cramp or a
fainting spell of exhaustion. But it was necessarily only surmise, and
one theory was as tenable as another.

Long parleys were held by Blair and Shelby as to what was best to be
done. It proved to be impossible to persuade any one to start on a
search for the body of Crane. The winter had set in and it was a
hopeless task to undertake in the snows of the wild. No, they were told,
not until March at the earliest, could a s