Two on the Trail: A Story of Canada Snows

by E. E. Cowper

Of course he found the trail made by Nell, David, and the dog, right across by the north shore to beyond the first big bend of the river, where they took to the ice again. The thaw had made it more difficult, but such an old trailer as Stenson could not be deceived easily.

He found the fire where they stopped, and finally in the dusk, as described, he followed the trail up the steep to the neighbourhood of the bear's den. If he had not done that he would, of course, have surprised the two in the shack. As it was, the bear became, after all, a friend to the pair he had attacked in the first place.

When Stenson appeared the big black brute was in a worse mood than before. He was more hungry and he had smelt the scent of cooking that came from the stove-pipe of the log house. The trapper fired at him, because he was obviously dangerous and it had not occurred to him that the trail he had followed ended so soon. If it had, he would have been more cautious probably.

The bear, slightly wounded, made a dash for the man, who ran behind a tree and fired again. But the light was deceiving, and the affair ended in the bear retreating into the rocky fortress--to fight another day. Stenson, seeing drops of blood on the snow, decided to come again, kill the bear, and get the pelt; meanwhile he would go on down to the shack, which was, he knew, not far distant on this curve of the river bank. Therefore he presently came down to the log hut and found it was locked. That did not surprise him much, but he expected to find the key hung as usual in some place under the sheltering eaves of the log roof.

By this time it was too dark to see a trail, or find a small thing like a key. So Mr. Jan Stenson lost his temper, as he usually did, and blew in the lock of the door, as he had done to another log house not long before!

Instantly he was greeted by a smell of warmth and food. The little place had not had time to cool. The blankets were warm. The stove hastily filled up with fresh wood, already dry, was quite hot.

Stenson rushed out into the snow, and lighting a torch made of a bit of dry bark, looked about over the ground and found at once the track of the three sets of footprints to the water's edge--or rather to the edge of the ice.

He went slowly back to the shack, considering what he should do, and the final conclusion he came to was--a mistake.

He did not imagine that the Lindsays were but ten minutes ahead of him. Had he been sure of that he would certainly have followed on at once. The smartness of Nell's retreat was beyond him. He did not believe she would have gone off down river in the dark. It was unreasonable to suppose that two young things would have started at nightfall. Therefore he decided to follow his inclination, now he knew that they must be about six or eight hours ahead of him at the outside, on a direct course to Moose River and probably unsuspicious of his approach. He would make a good meal, take a few hours' comfortable sleep and go on again at dawn. He was travelling faster than they were. They seemed entirely at his mercy, for the river was wide and open, while there would be many, many miles of Moose River yet to cover.

Thus, while Nell, David, and Robin drove their weary feet on and on through the night hours, Mr. Stenson slept soundly and woke up before daybreak to finish the food Andrew Lindsay had cached. It was certainly not justice, but that has nothing to do with adventures, very often, anyway.