Cautiously keeping the shack between themselves and the wood they sped down to the brink, out through the rotten ice and slush, and away on to the river. Then off, with all the speed they could muster, away and away, eastward again down that smooth snow-covered road, and the last thing they heard was another shot.
"I hope the old bear kills him," said David vindictively.
"Oh, he won't. Stenson's got his gun. But, Da, what a true mercy; if he hadn't come by the bear track he'd have actually walked into the shack and caught us going to bed."
"I'd have shot him if he had, as soon as wink," said David; "he wants peppering."
Nell laughed again. She had thought of that last resort herself!
Next time she spoke she said how splendid the rest had been. This was because she knew David was feeling a little guilty about it. Also it was very, very true. Both of them moved in quite a new way. The effort of that last day was gone; they were as fresh as when they started, and so was Robin.
Darker it grew and darker, till they went on with no light but the snow and a few stars, not the great shining stars of the farthest north, but stars that helped a little.
Nell was more anxious about the road underfoot than the skies overhead. There was always the danger of a flaw in the ice below, and she knew there might be holes--places where water had come up over the ice, places where streams from the bank running in made weakness. Nell had often heard stories of inexperienced folk going up north too late in the season, who had died a quick death because "the bottom fell out of the trail," that was the expression used when the ice road gave way under you and you went down and under the awful drifting sections of ice. And yet what were they to do? The river was better going than the rough shores which might be any kind of travelling, up hill, down dale, woods, streams cutting into the big one, every sort of delay and check.
It was best, she decided, to keep on, going fast, as long as they heard no cracking, serious cracking. If that began, they must land and get past any weak place by the bank.
"After all, we are not very heavy," she said, and comforted herself with that.