the fire and plucked a ptarmigan and set it to toasting with the last of
their bread over the coals.

Noel came back soon with a cheery whoop to tell the little cook that
they had drifted before the storm down the whole length of the great
barren, and were camped now on the opposite side, just under the highest
ridge of the Top Gallants. There was not a track on the barrens, he
said; not a sign of wolf or caribou, which had probably wandered deeper
into the woods for shelter. So they ate their bread to the last crumb
and their bird to the last bone, and, giving up all thought of hunting,
started up the big barren, heading for the distant Lodge, where they had
long since been given up for lost.

They had crossed the barren and a mile of thick woods beyond when they
ran into the fresh trail of a dozen caribou. Following it swiftly they
came to the edge of a much smaller barren that they had crossed
yesterday, and saw at a glance that the trail stretched straight across
it. Not a caribou was in sight; but they might nevertheless be feeding,
or resting in the woods just beyond; and for the little hunters to show
themselves now in the open would mean that they would become instantly
the target for every keen eye that was watching the back trail. So they
started warily to circle the barren, keeping just within the fringe of
woods out of sight.

They had gone scarcely a hundred steps when Noel whipped out a long
arrow and pointed silently across the open. From the woods on the other
side the caribou had broken out of a dozen tunnels under the spruces,
and came trotting back in their old trails, straight downwind to where
the little hunters were hiding.

The deer were acting queerly,--now plunging away with the high, awkward
jumps that caribou use when startled; now swinging off on their swift,
tireless rack, and before they had settled to their stride halting
suddenly to look back and wag their ears at the trail. For Megaleep is
full of curiosity as a wild turkey, and always stops to get a little
entertainment out of every new thing that does not threaten him with
instant death. Then out of the woods behind them trotted five white
wolves,--not hunting, certainly! for whenever the caribou stopped to
look the wolves sat down on their tails and yawned. One lay down and
rolled over and over in the soft snow; another chased and capered after
his own brush, whirling round and round like a little whirlwind, and the
shrill _ki-yi_