Two on the Trail: A Story of Canada Snows

by E. E. Cowper

After that the action proceeded swiftly.

The time being little beyond midnight they had some hours before the camp on the south shore would wake. Nell and David took a small compact bundle each, simply the sleeping bag, a billy-can, a little tea and pemmican, the object being to travel as light as possible and cover as much ground as they could in the shortest time. The Indians gave Nell careful and distinct directions about her journey. She was not to touch on the lake, but to go along the north side of it through the woods and cut across the bend of the river on the land. In this way she was to travel quite ten miles of the stream, but always keeping in the woods. After that it would be safe for her to take to the course of the ice, they all thought, but it might depend on circumstances. About that time, too, she would reach the log house--the bunk house run up for travellers, where Andrew Lindsay had made a cache. Nell was depending rather on that for enough food to keep on with. Haste being her one object, it was not possible to set a wire for a chance rabbit, and concealment being necessary, they could not fire a gun unless absolutely forced to do so in self-defence. A shot would ring far in the silent snow-laden woods.

So that was the plan mapped out by the two girls, and very soon after that they parted, Nell and David going off east through the scattered woods of the north shore, the Lizard and his sister going back west, also on the shore, and dragging the sled, until they arrived at a place from which it seemed safe to take to the lake again and come down the centre of it as described, making the trail that was to mislead the pursuers.

All those long hours till the grey of morning began to make the trees ghostlike, brother and sister went on and on with Robin. At first they felt the pleasure of going ahead without the drag of the sled, but about six o'clock they were very tired, and Nell decreed a short rest, tea, and a feed. They made a small round fire with great care, boiled some snow water for tea, ate their dried meat and gave Robin a bit of the dried fish they carried for him. No bacon. They must wait for the cache.

Then, rested somewhat, they went on again. They had reached the river outlet and were cutting across that part round which its course wound. This was about the time when Stenson was coming down the lake hot on the trail of the Indians, who were certainly ten miles behind Nell, if not more.

David was beginning to think it was all right again. He depended greatly on the Indian girl's ruse, but Nell was very anxious. She could feel that money at her waist every time she moved, and the responsibility was a burden. She had taken upon herself to remove it from the hiding-place, and she had a feeling that she owed it to her father now to carry her plan through, whatever it cost.

With this dread upon her she put off taking to the river as long as they could get on by land. But it was harder, slower going--the shoes caught in snags and roots unless they moved with greatest care, and a long swing was difficult.

About noon, and after another rest, Nell declared she'd risk it. They unstrapped their snowshoes, broke a way through the undergrowth and found the river again--wider, snow-covered for the most part, smooth going.

They had not come all this way without seeing a forest creature or two--a rabbit, a mink that was chasing it just as stoats do in England. The rabbit escaped, thanks to Robin's interference, but the mink did also.

The climb down the bank brought them up against the land entrance of a musk-rat's nest, a big heap of sticks and rubbish that looked so careless, but was so carefully made. They knew that down away under the ice was a water entrance also, and between the two entrances a nest most beautifully safe and dry which the mink was always trying to get at.