"But we won't be able to find any now. The moose are gone——"
"We're not very likely to, that's certain; but it won't be a tragedy if we don't. It would only be an annoyance. It's true that we've got to have more supplies to start down—I don't believe we could make it through with what we have, considering the loss of this ham—but if it's necessary I can mush over to me Twenty-three Mile cabin and get the supplies I left over there. Harold tells me he hasn't a thing in his old place. However, I can do it, if we don't happen to pick up some meat to-day."
"We might track down the wolves, and get one of those——"
"Wolf meat hasn't a flavor you'd care for, I'm afraid. The Indians have been known to eat it, but they can but away beaver and tough old grizzly bear. Those things are starvation meats only. But if you care to, we can dash out and see if we can pick up a young caribou or a left-over moose. It's pleasant out to-day, anyway. It's rather warm—I believe there's going to be a change of weather."
"Good or bad?" the girl asked.
"Haven't had any government bulletins on that point, this morning. Probably bad. The weather in the North, Virginia, goes along the way it is a while, and then it gets worse."
She dressed, and at breakfast their exultation over their trip grew painful to Harold's ears. He announced his intention of going along.
Curiously, even Virginia did not receive this announcement with particular enthusiasm. It was not that her regard for Bill was any kin to that she held for Harold. Rather, it was a fear that Harold's presence might blunt the edge of the fine companionship she enjoyed with the woodsman. It would throw a personal element into an otherwise care-free and adventurous day. But she smiled at him, rather fondly.
"Just as you like, Harold."
They put on their snowshoes, their warmest wraps, and started gayly forth. Bill took rather a new course to-day. He bent his steps toward a stream that he called Creek Despair,—named for the fact that he had once held high hopes of finding his lost mine along its waters, only to meet an utter and hopeless failure. From the map he had judged that the lost claim lay somewhere along its course, but he had washed it from its mother springs clear to its mouth, finding scarcely the faintest traces in the pan. Because he had made such a tireless search in this particular section in previous years he had completely avoided it in the present adventure. Even on his pleasure trips with Virginia he had never forgotten his search: thus he had led her into more favorable regions where he might reasonably keep his eyes over for clews. Now that he had given up finding the claim—for this season, at least, and perhaps forever—one way was as good as another. And he remembered that an old caribou trail lay just beyond the stream on the steep hillside.