The old Beaver Trail started south of the fort, alongside the little hillock where Jean had been tobogganing the day of her disappearance, and thence ran for miles, crossing the little streams and ponds where the beaver villages had been built. Because most of the beaver colonies had been broken up along this route, the trail had been superseded by another, called the New Trail; hence this was an unfrequented, almost untraveled, path that Peter Rainy had named.
Donald McTavish knew every shrub, tree, and stone within a mile of Fort Severn in any direction, after the summer spent there, and to-night he relied upon his recognition of inanimate objects to lead him aright. A ghostly spruce with a wedge-shaped bite out of its stiff foliage told him he was a hundred feet to the right; a flat-topped rock, suddenly stumbled upon, convinced him that for five minutes he had been walking back toward the fort.
The alarm-bell had ceased ringing now, and he could hear nothing but the shriek of the wind, the hollow roaring of it in the woods, and the hiss and whish of driving snow. The folds of his capote protected him partially from the stinging particles, and his gauntleted hands shielded his eyes somewhat.
Not another man in Fort Severn could have found the old Beaver Trail that night, and many a time during the hour Donald blessed the memory of Jean Fitzpatrick and their many excursions in the vicinity of the post. By devious zigzags and retracings, he suddenly found himself face to face with a ten-foot stump that Indians had long ago carved into a sort of totem, which had been left standing as a curiosity. There, the trail began, and he was able to make faster time, although all evidence of a footway were, of course, obliterated. As he went deeper into the forest, the wind became steadier and less changeable in direction, and the snow lost the worst of its sting.
Still guided by old, friendly landmarks, Donald drew near the rendezvous. He knew the place well. It was slightly off the trail, behind a bowlder. At last he reached it and peered around. There, sleeping in a huddle, his feet to a camp-fire, the sleigh snow-banked as a wind break, and the dogs curled in a black-and-white, steaming bundle, Peter Rainy lay unconcernedly.
With a cry of joy, Donald awakened his faithful servant, and, in the comparative shelter of the rock, told his story briefly.
“Quick, kick the dogs up!” he cried. “We must push on at once. I am followed.”
[CHAPTER XI]
A HOT SCENT
Without a word, Rainy made preparations for moving. A lesser woodsman or lazier servant would have demurred, for, while the blizzard lasted, there was scarcely a chance in a million that any searcher from the fort would find their hiding-place. Even now, the newcomer's tracks were already wiped clean from the white page of the snow.