now
clouds; and behind them--Their stout little hearts trembled as they saw
not a vestige of the trail they had just made. With the great world
itself, their own little tracks, as fast as they made them, were swept
and blotted out of existence. Like two sparrows that had dropped blinded
and bewildered on the vast plain out of the snow cloud, they huddled
together without one friendly sign to tell them whence they had come or
whither they were going. Worst of all, the instinct of direction, which
often guides an Indian through the still fog or the darkest night,
seemed benumbed by the cold and the tumult; and not even Old Tomah
himself could have told north or south in the blinding storm.

Still they ran on bravely, bending to the fierce blasts, heading the
wind as best they could, till Mooka, tripping a second time in a little
hollow where a brook ran deep under the snow, and knowing now that they
were but wandering in an endless circle, seized Noel's arm and repeated
her question:

"Are we lost, little brother?"

And Noel, lost and bewildered, but gripping his bow in his fur mitten
and peering here and there, like an old hunter, through the whirling
flakes and rolling gusts to catch some landmark, some lofty crag or low
tree-line that held steady in the mad dance of the world, still made
confident Indian answer:

"Noel not lost; Noel right here. Camp lost, little sister."

"Can we find um, little brother?"

"Oh, yes, we find um. Find um bimeby, pretty soon quick now, after
storm."

"But storm last all night, and it's soon dark. Can we rest and not
freeze? Mooka tired and--and frightened, little brother."

"Sartin we rest; build um _commoosie_ and sleep jus' like bear in his
den. Oh, yes, sartin we rest good," said Noel cheerfully.

"And the wolves, little brother?" whispered Mooka, looking back timidly
into the wild waste out of which they had come.

"Never mind hwolves; nothing hunts in storm, little sister. Come on, we
must find um woods now."

For one brief moment the little hunter stood with upturned face, while
Mooka bowed her head silently, and the great storm rolled unheeded over
them. Still holding his long bow he stretched both hands to the sky in
the mute appeal that _Keesuolukh_, the Great Mystery whom we call God,
would understand better than all words. Then turning their backs to the
gale they drifted swiftly away before it, like two wind-blown leaves,
running to keep from freezing, and holdi