“Shucks, Aggie!” he returned. “You know the kind of wild animal we scared up this morning when we found Ike M’Graw’s place.”
“Oh! Oh!” cried Agnes, with laughter.
“What’s the joke?” asked Luke.
So Neale told the rest of the party how he and Agnes had followed the footprints of the “deer” clear to the old man’s cabin.
“And there we could hear them squealing in their pen,” was the way Neale finished it.
“Two mighty hunters, you!” chuckled Luke.
The road over which they dragged the sled soon became steep. They were now climbing a long hill through heavier timber. It was a straight path, and the crown of the ascent was more than a mile from Red Deer Lodge.
Half way up they passed a fork in the timber road. The roads were not rutted at all, for they were full of firm snow. This second road dipped to the north, running down the steep hill and out of sight.
“That chap who told me about this slide told me to ’ware that road,” Luke said. “Around that curve he said it was steep and there’d be no stopping the sled for a long way. If we stick to the right track, we’ll slide back almost to the Lodge itself.”
“That’ll help some,” Cecile said. “I am getting tired tramping over this snow. It’s a harder pull than I imagined it would be.”