Hour after hour the girl lay still, only moving to keep the fire up. She would have given anything to feel sleepy and to stop thinking. She could not forget those precious leather bags that she felt against her side; the presence of them forced her to keep on thinking about the long miles ahead before she could put them in safety.
Presently something else began to disturb her. That queer feeling of certainty that someone is near. She heard no special sound, yet the sense of a presence grew and grew till the commonest noises made her jump. When the faint grey of dawn began to creep around the little camp, she crawled out of her bag and stood up. Robin sprang up too and shook himself, then he stretched a very long stretch and yawned, looking at his mistress in an interested way.
Nell took him by the ears and whispered to him that he must stop and look after David. She was going a very short way, but he must guard the camp. Robin sank down against the boy's side with a sigh. He wanted to go, but he knew his duty. The girl looked to the priming of her pistol, then she stole away alone, into the forest.
She made a circle round the camp, and when she came to her starting-point followed on again in a still wider circle. After that the high rocks forming the gates of the waterfall stopped a complete circle. She turned and went back outside her own track.
It was difficult, because of the roughness, but she persevered, to be rewarded, for quite suddenly she came upon the ashes of a little camp fire. Kneeling down she felt the patch, the ashes were still warm.
The place lay to the north-west of their own camp--that was, on the back track behind them. Whoever made that fire was following the sled pullers most likely and was travelling light himself, for there was no trace of sled runners. Nell sought very anxiously for his trail both to and from the fire, but it was purposely confused--concealed in the shrewdest way. Just here and there Nell saw obvious "spoor" of human passage. Then it was gone.
The fire was very small and round, showing the camp of a "sour-dough," as an experienced hand is called in the north. But no more could she feel certain of. There was another very odd thing. It did not appear that this traveller had found the camp of the fugitives. He had stopped for the night in this place, and presumably gone on before the break of day.
The girl comforted herself with this reflection. It might be a trapper on his own business passing from one district to another, but unconscious of her and David. She would have liked to go back along the river trail to look for his spoor, but time was pressing seriously. As she went "home" with flying feet she cogitated whether it would be wise to tell David, and ended in telling him. After all, they were doing the job in partnership!
She woke him from sound sleep when she got in, and told him while the fire was burning up. He said nothing for a few minutes. Then he made a practical suggestion.
"If we take Robin to that camp fire and start him on the scent, he'll follow it up and be on the man all right."