d left my coloured glasses behind me in the tent and gone
on, saying nothing, though I had realized my loss when I was only a
mile or so away.

However, I hoped that the night would restore my sight, and so,
dismissing the matter from my mind, I struggled up until at last I
stood upon the summit of the hill.

The view from this point was a stupendous one. New peaks sprang into
vision, shimmering in the sunlight. Patches of dark forest stained the
whiteness of the land, and far away, like a thin, winding ribbon among
the hills, I saw the valley of the Riviere d'Or.

I cried out in delight and lingered to enjoy the grandeur of the
spectacle.

Beneath me I saw Jacqueline waiting, a tiny figure upon the snow. My
heart smote me with a deep sense of reproach that I had put her to so
much sacrifice. But I had seen the valley between those mountains, the
only possible entrance to that mysterious land. Nothing could fail us
now.

I cast my eyes beyond her toward the mist-wrapped tops of the far
Laurentians and the plains.

And a sense of an inevitable fate came over me as I perceived far away
a tiny, crawling ant upon the snows--Simon Leroux's dog sleigh.

I went back to the little, patient figure that was waiting for me, and
I took up my pack again and told her nothing. She stepped bravely out
beside me, frozen, fatigued, but willing because I bade her. She did
not ask anything of me.

The sun dipped lower, and far away I heard the howl of the solitary
wolf again.

My mind had been working very fast during that journey down the hill,
and long before I reached Jacqueline I had resolved that she should
know nothing of the pursuit until the moment came when she must be told.

That the pursuer was Leroux there could be no possible doubt. He had
evidently passed the sleigh, and was undoubtedly pressing forward,
elated and confident of our capture. But he must still be at least a
dozen miles away.

He could not reach us that night and he could hardly travel by night.
We should have a half day's start of him in the morning.

I gripped my pistols as we strode along.

We went on and on. The afternoon was wearing away; the sun was very
low now and all its strength had gone. The wolf followed us, howling
from afar. Once I saw it across the treeless wastes--a gaunt, white,
dog-like figure, trotting against the steely grey of the sky.

We ascended the last of the foot-hills before the trail dipped toward
the