I flung the gun over my shoulder.
"Have it your way," I said sullenly. "It is on your head."
"On my head," he agreed.
"Rocks," grunted Corlaer in front of us.
I looked up eagerly. A few hundred yards away a cube of rock projected from the snow dominating the country for miles, the one break in the level of the high plateau.
"Good," said Tawannears. "We will talk to the brothers there. Perhaps we can make a camp."
"Ja," assented Corlaer. "Andt trees."
His keen eyes had identified a scraggly patch of timber that clustered around a cleft in the side of the rock-mass. The moon shone on the snow-flecked, dark-green boughs of evergreens, but for the most part it was little better than dried-up bushes and dwarf growths. Yet such as it was it meant shelter and warmth again—if we could shake off that stealthy procession of ghostly figures behind us. They had quickened their pace as they sensed our approach to the rock. The howls became frankly savage and lustful. Close at hand I heard the snapping of frantic jaws.
"Don't run," urged Tawannears' voice in my ear. "The man on snowshoes is at a disadvantage, brother. We have time."
Time, but no more. In that cold that was so severe as to make it agony to touch fingers to steel I gained the mouth of the rock-cleft with the sweat dribbling down my back. And it was not the sweat of haste, but of fear. All around us the pattering of feet sounded like the swishing of women's skirts in the lightly packed snow. A half-circle of gray figures formed, red tongues lolling over flashing white teeth, steam rising from five-score panting chests. Eyes glinted like pricks of flame. They were silent—snapping at each other, yawning, grr-rr-rrhing! softly, but no more baying their mournful challenge to the sky.