Then, a strong dual feeling came over him. He longed to track the dead man's rascally partner, find him, and have the just punishment meted out upon his head. Next, to meet the original of the picture, restore the locket, and to tell the story of the death in the wilderness.
"What an appearance I would make," he mused, glancing at his rough buck-skin clothes, coarse leggings, and moccasined feet, while his right hand swept across his unkempt beard and long hair. "If she could see me now she would think I had murdered her brother instead of fighting hard to save his life."
Leaving the grave he returned to the cabin. Here he strapped his slender outfit on the small sled, and with snow-shoes on his feet left the place. He had advanced some distance when suddenly he remembered the dog. He stopped and gave a sharp whistle. Then he called, but the animal did not appear.
"Strange!" he thought. "What has happened to the brute? I must not leave him here."
Retracing his steps, he searched the cabin. Not finding him, he went to the grave, and there, lying on the snowy mound, he found the poor brute. His grief was plainly evident, and, as he lifted his head in response to Keith's call, sorrow, almost human, was depicted on his face. Only after much coaxing was he induced to leave the spot, abandon his old master, and cast in his lot with the new.
Together, at length, they set out upon the long trail; the man drawing the sled, the dog walking dejectedly behind. It was a dreary march over that desolate waste, as on and on they moved, two creeping specks. Nowhere, except it be upon the heaving ocean, does one feel more deeply his own insignificance than when alone in the great white North in midwinter. No human voice to break the awful silence; no song of bird or buzz of insect to fall upon the ear; thousands of miles from home, in a roadless wilderness.
As the second day was drawing to a close, Keith's weary steps quickened. He leaned eagerly forward, his strong, gaunt face filled with expectancy. Creak! Creak! How loudly the snow-shoes sounded at each swinging stride. The noise disturbed him. He stopped and listened intently. Then a look of disappointment passed over his countenance. His gaze swept the sky. The Northern Lights were streaming across the heavens like huge pennons flung out into a strong breeze. The unseen spirits of the North seemed to be marching and countermarching in vast battalions through the Arctic night. Their banners rose, faded, vanished; to reappear, writhing, twisting, curling, flashing forth in matchless beauty all the colours of the rainbow. Yellow and green, green and yellow, ruby-red and greenish-white, chasing one another, vieing with one another as the great, silent army incessantly retreated and advanced.
Such scenes seldom failed to arouse in Keith the feeling of wonder and awe, but on this night he hardly noticed the grand display. He was watching the friendly stars as they tumbled out one by one. For long years they had been his steady companions on many a toilsome journey, and he read them like an open book. He saw the belted Orion swinging in its accustomed place, and the Great Bear dipping close to the horizon. It was seven o'clock, he felt sure of that, and yet that sound did not come. He advanced for some distance, halted, and again listened.
It was a cold night, and his breath pouring forth in clouds smote with a hissing sound upon the frosty air. He heeded it not. His parka hood was backward thrown to enable him to hear the better.
Presently dark forms loomed up out of the night, straight before him. "I was afraid of it," he muttered. "The rumor I heard was only too true, and they are here! May God help us!"