At the base of the hill, the boy suggested that they separate and each follow its base in opposite directions, pointing out that much time could be saved, as the hill, which was of mountainous proportions, seemed likely to have a base contour of eight or ten miles. But 'Merican Joe flatly refused. He would accompany Connie, as he had agreed to, but not one foot would he go without the boy. All the way up the ridge, he had followed so closely that more than once he had stepped on the tails of Connie's snowshoes, and twice, when the boy had halted suddenly to catch some fancied sound, he had bumped into him.
It was nearly sundown when the two stood at the intersection of their own trail after having made the complete circuit of the hill. Fox tracks they had found, also the tracks of wolves, and rabbits, and of an occasional loup cervier—and nothing more. Connie had examined every foot of the ground carefully, and at intervals had halted and yelled at the top of his lungs—had even persuaded 'Merican Joe to launch forth his own peculiarly penetrating call, but their only answer was the dead, sphinx-like silence of the barrens.
"Com' on," urged 'Merican Joe, with a furtive glance into a nearby thicket. "Me—I got nuff. I know we ain' goin' fin' no track. Tamahnawus don' mak' no track."
"Tamahnawus, nothing!" exclaimed Connie, impatiently. "I tell you there ain't any such thing. If we had grub enough I'd stay right here till I found out where that yell comes from. There's no sign of a camp on the hill, and no one has gone up or come down since this snow fell. There's something funny about the whole business, and you bet I'm going to find out what it is."
"You say we no fin' de track, we go back to de cabin," reminded the Indian.
"Yes, and we will go back. And then we'll load up a sled-load of grub, and we'll hit right back here and stay till we get at the bottom of this. The sun will drop out of sight in a minute, and then I think we'll hear it again. We heard it last evening at sundown, and at sunrise this morning."
"I ain' wan' to hear it no mor'," 'Merican Joe announced uneasily. "Dat ain' no good to hear."
Extending upward clear to the crest of the hill, directly above where the two stood, was an area half a mile wide upon which no timber grew. Here and there a jumbled outcropping of rock broke the long smooth sweep of snow upon which the last rays of the setting sun were reflected with dazzling brightness. As Connie waited expectantly he was conscious of a tenseness of nerves, that manifested itself in a clenching of his fists, and the tight-pressing of his lips. His eyes swept the long up-slanting spread of snow, and even as he looked he heard 'Merican Joe give a startled grunt, and there before them on the snow beside an outcropping of rocks not more than three hundred yards from them, a beautiful black fox stood clean-cut against the white background, and daintily sniffed the air. Connie's surprise was no less than the Indian's for he knew that scarcely a second had passed since his eyes had swept that exact spot—and there had been no fox there.
The sunlight played only upon the upper third of the long slope now, and the fox lifted his delicately pointed muzzle upward as if to catch some fleeting scent upon the almost motionless air. Then came that awful cry, rising in a high thin scream, and trailing off as before in a quavering wail of despair.