The banks of the stream lowered and opened suddenly. The withering force of the blast struck him, the snow buffeted him, and for a moment he stood held in his tracks, then the wind momentarily slackened, and dimly through the driving snow he caught sight of something that loomed shadowlike before him. It was the bluff that he was seeking, and as he moved towards it, the wind broken, grew less boisterous, though a steady stream of fine hard snow swept down upon him from its height. The snow blanketed everything, and he could see nothing; then he heard a dog yelp and stumbled forward in the direction of the sound. A minute later, in the shelter of some high rocks, he saw a camp-fire, beside which a team of dogs in harness huddled in the snow, anchored there by the sled turned on its side, and by the fire a man crouched and stared into the snow-wrack. As he visioned them, Stane slipped the rifle from the hollow of his arm, and staggered forward like a drunken man.
The man by the fire becoming aware of him leaped suddenly to his feet. In a twinkling his rifle was at his shoulder, and through the wild canorous note of the wind, Stane caught his hail. "Hands up! You murderer!"
Something in the voice struck reminiscently on his ears, and this, as he recognized instantly, was not the hail of a man who had just committed a terrible crime. He dropped his rifle and put up his hands. The man changed his rifle swiftly for a pistol, and began to advance. Two yards away he stopped.
"Stane! by—!"
Then Stane recognized him. It was Dandy Anderton, the mounted policeman, and in the relief of the moment he laughed suddenly.
"You, Dandy?"
"Yes! What in heaven's name is the meaning of it all? Did you see anything? Hear the firing? There are two dead men out there in the snow." He jerked his head towards the lake. "And there was a dog-team, but I lost it in the storm. Do you know anything about it, Stane? I hope that you had no hand in this killing?"
The questions came tumbling over each other all in one breath, and as they finished, Stane, still a little breathless, replied:
"No, I had no hand in that killing. I don't understand it at all, but that sledge, we must find it, for to the best of my belief, Miss Yardely is on it."
"Miss Yardely! What on earth——"