"Not mooch. That man heem say only leetle way from whar we strike river."
"Then we ought to find them tomorrow?"
"Mebby. No can tell."
Lucky and Bob had dug a hole in the snow and had covered the bottom with an extra thick layer of spruce boughs as the night bid fair to be the coldest they had yet encountered. The sleeping room, as Jack dubbed it, was long enough to permit a good sized fire to be built at one end and, as the walls were nearly five feet high, it was really cozy by the time they were ready to turn in.
"Forty-eight below," Bob announced as he glanced at the thermometer just before crawling into his bag.
"I should worry," Jack, who had been "in bed" for some moments, chuckled.
Jack was a sound sleeper and seldom awoke during the night unless disturbed. But this night it seemed to him that he had hardly fallen asleep when he awoke with a sudden start. For a moment he lay wondering what had happened. He could hear Bob breathing steadily on one side of him while the Indian was snoring quietly on the other, and knew they were both sleeping. The fire had died down to a bed of coals by which he knew that he had been asleep for some hours at least. He was about to shut his eyes again, convinced that he had awakened without cause, when a low threatening growl reached his ears.
"That's Lightning," he thought as he strained his ears again.
For some moments he heard no other sound and drowsiness was stealing over him when the sharp snap of a twig brought him wide awake. Reaching over he touched his brother lightly.
"S-s-s-s-h. Listen," he whispered.