Dexter continued to use his pocket lamp, and he had eyes for everything. By the promptness with which she had recovered from each misstep, he gathered that she was an agile, quick-witted woman, probably young. It must have been a painful ordeal to go plunging through the thickets, but she had taken the punishment with apparent stoicism, scarcely pausing at any time in her hurried, free-swinging stride.
At one place, where she had touched the edge of a briary clump, Dexter found a wisp of hair caught on a thorn—three soft, wavy silken threads of a deep bronze shade. He pulled off his glove to twist the gossamer strand about his forefinger, and almost imagined a sensation of human warmth. And somehow he felt a sudden dislike for the work he had to do. There are times when police business calls for sterner qualities than simple courage and loyalty. The corporal was confronted by a duty that revolted every knightly instinct; nevertheless he pushed onward at a faster pace. He could not shirk a disagreeable task, and was resolved to have it over with as soon as possible.
The woman did not turn down towards the more open ground along the course of the valley stream, but continued to travel through the deeper forest. She had soon wandered away from the vaguely defined runway, and was forced to seek out her own pathway. Through occasional openings in the tree-tops Dexter caught glimpses of the north-bearing star Capella, which the Indians call the "little white goat." For a while the fugitive had kept on in a northerly direction, but presently the trail began to bend to the left, turning towards the back hills. And as the corporal followed, he began to realize that he was swinging on a wide arc towards the west. The line of prints meandered back and forth in a rather aimless way, but the trend of divergence was always to the left. By the signs he inferred that the woman had missed her bearings, and, as usually is the case with lost people, was circling gradually around the compass.
Experienced wayfarers of the wilderness learn to "average" their windings, always bearing towards an imaginary fixed point ahead, like a ship tacking at sea. The star Capella served to-night as an infallible guiding beacon for travelers in the trackless country. But the woman, whoever she was, continued to wander farther and farther off her original course. By the time he had followed a half hour on her trail Dexter was certain that she was a newcomer in the northland.
In spite of darkness and the denseness of the timber, she still kept up her rapid pace. It seemed to her pursuer that she was in panic-stricken flight. Surely she must tire very soon. But her circling path led Dexter on and on through the dismal forest and still there was no evidence of lagging on the trail. He was beginning to marvel at the story of brave endurance that he read in the trail of the little footprints. The fugitive might not be versed in woodcraft, but nevertheless she seemed to have the pluck and physical stamina of a seasoned voyageur.
The corporal had his lamp to light the way before him, and he plowed through the snow with enormous energy. He was certain that he gained steadily, yet at the end of an hour he had not overtaken the woman.
By almost imperceptible degrees the line of tracks kept on curving in a left hand arc, and after winding his way for another twenty or thirty minutes through the hushed labyrinths of the woods, he became aware that he was now heading more southerly than west. He trudged onward until a rift in the drooping branches overhead gave him a momentary glimpse of the sky, and he found the beacon star twinkling above his left shoulder. The trail he followed had swung around the compass, and he was traveling back to the east. He half smiled to himself as he reckoned distance and direction. The hunted woman had wandered by tortuous paths through miles of darkness, only to turn back at last towards the tragic spot from which she had fearfully fled.
By the freshly trod prints, the skilled tracker knew that he was running down the fugitive. In places, fluffy bits of snow were still breaking at the edges of the new-made tracks. He should overtake her any minute now. As he lengthened his stride he listened for sounds of lightly crunching feet, and peered sharply ahead, expecting with every step to catch sight of a hurrying figure among the spruces.
He was advancing through a tangle of snow-sheeted brush, his arm thrusting aside the trailing branches, when suddenly he caught a red glint of light in the darkness beyond. At the same instant a stray breath of wind brought to him a resinous smell of wood smoke. A fire of some sort apparently had been kindled in the forest ahead.
Wondering, he broke his way out of the thicket, and paused for a moment to stare before him. A flaming glow flickered among the trees, throwing ruddy reflections upon the wintry landscape. A glance told him it was too big a blaze to be a camp fire. He knew that a forest conflagration seldom starts and never gains much headway when the trees are laden with snow, but for the instant he felt the sharp sense of alarm that communicates itself to all woodland dwellers at the sight and scent of burning timber. He left the trail he was following, and plunged straight through the underbrush towards the crimson flaring light.