For three hours Dick had been breaking-trail steadily and had reached the point where his endurance was spent, where it seemed to him that to take one more step would result in physical collapse. Behind him straggled a perspiring, panting line of weary dogs and wearier men, while ahead—snow; acre upon acre, mile upon mile, interminable, never-ending—snow!

The sun of late afternoon shone brightly on the snow and made of it a vast, brilliant, sparkling field of intolerable whiteness. To gaze for any length of time into that field was impossible. The human eye wavered before that blinding radiance, could not for long meet and hold its glaring intensity. So it was that Dick looked down as he staggered on at the head of the column, and so it was that every other member of the party moved forward with bent head.
103

They were travelling northeast in the general direction of Keechewan Mission. Keechewan Mission was at the end of an imaginary straight line—a very straight line—beginning at the Mackenzie River barracks. Sometimes, because of topographical obstructions—hills, ravines, dense forests, and the like—the party was forced to deviate or detour from the prescribed route. Naturally this wandering brought confusion. No one knew with any degree of certainty whether, when they came back and attempted to get on the right track again, they were a little east or a little west or directly upon that imaginary line.

It was a problem that would have absorbed the interest of a navigator or a civil engineer. To Dick, however, it was a hopeless tangle—blindly guessing at something and hoping it would come out all right. More and more he fell to consulting other members of the party, especially Toma, who had a strong sense of direction, and who had been uncannily successful in guiding Dick and Sandy on previous expeditions.

He was thinking of all this as he plodded wearily along. Perhaps even now they were off the trail and would eventually come to grief in some forbidding wasteland, far from the haunts of men.

He heard footsteps behind him and felt the weight of a hand upon his shoulder.

“What—you break trail all time. You go back now an’ drive ’em my team an’ ride a little while mebbe. Too hard break trail an’ no stop an’ rest.”
104

It was Toma, of course. Always faithful and observing. A ready champion and trusted friend.

“It’s good of you,” Dick said wearily. “I am tired. My eyes hurt too. This glare is terrible.”

“It very bad,” agreed the young Indian. “One dog driver back there,” he pointed, “him almost snow-blind.”

“Glad you told me. Tonight when we make camp, I’ll send him to Dr. Brady.”

Dick stepped to one side to permit Toma to pass.

“Very well, then, you’ll take my place. But have I been going right, Toma? Don’t you think we ought to turn more to the left? I can’t imagine why it is, why I feel that way, I mean, but I keep thinking that we’re striking too far east.”

The Indian shook his head.

“No, I guess you go about right. Mebbe it no hurt to turn little more to left.”

Dick vaguely wondered.

“Why do you believe our course is about right?” he asked.

“All right,” returned Toma, “I tell you. In morning an’ at night when you look off that way,” Toma made a sweeping motion with one arm, “you see ’em big hill. We go towards that. We keep hill in front of us. If we go wrong on trail, big hill be one side or other—not in front. That’s how I know.”

“Hill,” said Dick, puzzled. “I haven’t seen any.”
105

“Then you not look very good. Mebbe you not look right time. Morning early, before sun him get too bright, you see ’em plain. Jus’ before sunset another good time. Tonight you try it an’ see.”

“I will,” said Dick, as he turned back to drive Toma’s team. “You may depend upon it.”

So, just before sunset, he called an early halt and while the other members of the party unharnessed the teams and proceeded to make supper, he climbed to the crest of a small hill and gazed off towards the northeast. Shadows had already commenced to appear along the hollows and ridges. There was no glare over the snow now. He could see for miles across that forsaken, desolate land.

Yet at first he could see nothing that resembled a hill. Where the horizon began, it was true, there reposed what looked like a bank of mist, but which, unlike mist, remained perfectly stationary and unchanging in form—a sort of purplish blotch against the blue background of the sky.

This, he decided, must be the hill Toma referred to. It didn’t look like one to his inexperienced eyes, yet hill it must be. The young Indian had good eyesight and a vast knowledge of the North stored away in that clever brain of his. At any rate, provided it didn’t disappear during the night, he would use that hill or blotch, or whatever it was, as the goal for tomorrow’s weary trek.
106

He returned to find supper waiting for him. The dog mushers sat huddled around the blazing campfires, resting after their arduous day. Dick was glad that he had called a halt earlier than usual. The physical strain of tramping hour after hour through soft, yielding drifts had been almost unendurable.

Usually after the evening meal, Dick remained beside the campfire to talk with Sandy and Dr. Brady, but tonight he felt too tired. After he had eaten, he bade his friends good-night and repaired to his tent, where he was soon lost in sleep.

When he awakened, a blue darkness still enveloped the earth. It was very early. He had a vague notion that he had been disturbed. Somewhere at the back of his consciousness was the dim memory of voices and running footsteps. But whether this was reality or a fragment of some vivid dream, he could not say. He lay still for a few minutes, listening.

Satisfied, at length, that he had heard nothing, that it was all an illusion, he turned on his side and attempted to go back to sleep. Just then there broke across his hearing, unusually clear and distinct, a shrill human cry. The cry was followed by the sound of a struggle and a muffled groan.
107

In a flash, Dick was up and fumbling for a candle. He tore into his clothes. He sprang to the tent opening and darted through—coatless, hatless, a revolver gripped firmly in his right hand. He made his way quickly toward the sound of struggling, arriving just as two men swayed to their feet and seized ea............