"Don't speak of it! We would have heard their cries if any of them had overtaken her."
No situation could be more trying than that of the two youths, who felt that every rod toward home took them that distance farther from the beloved one whose fate was involved in awful uncertainty.
"This won't do," added Monteith, after they had skated some distance farther; "we are now so far from the animals that they cannot trouble us again; we are deserting her in the most cowardly manner."
"But what shall we do? What can we do?"
"You know something of this part of the country; let's take off our skates and cut across the creek; she may have taken refuge in the limb of a tree and is awaiting us."
"Isn't some one coming up stream?" asked Fred, peering forward, where the straight stretch was so extensive that the vision permitted them to see unusually far.
"It may be another wolf."
"No; it is a person. Perhaps Quance has been drawn from his home by the racket. He is a great hunter. I hope it is he, for he can give us help in hunting for Jennie—"
Monteith suddenly gripped the arm of his friend.
"It is not a man! It is a woman!"