He broke off abruptly as something caught his eye. It was a new-marked sled-trail debouching from the main track, and he stooped to examine it carefully. When he straightened himself there was an eager light in his eye, and curbing his impatient dogs he stood considering for a full two minutes.
“He may have a shack here,” so his thoughts ran, “but if there’s more than that, why this broad road?”
He considered the avenue made by the sombre pinewoods on each side of the road, and then shook his head. “Too much style for Koona Dick. There must be a homestead somewhere about, but if those are not the marks of his sled-runners I’m a dutchman.”
He spoke a word or two to his well-trained dogs, and slipping off his snowshoes turned towards the trail which led into the wood, and began to follow it carefully. As he walked, he unbuttoned the pistol-holster at his waist, and gripped the handle of the weapon in preparation for action. The man whose trail he believed that he was following was not given to being over-scrupulous. He had pursued him for nearly four hundred miles, and now that the end of the chase was in sight, it behoved him to be cautious, for if Koona Dick suspected his presence his resentment of it might even go to the extreme length of a rifle bullet. He left the trail, and began to move cautiously from tree to tree.
The short Northland day was almost over. Dusk was coming on apace, and the gloom under the trees deepened, little misgivings awake in his mind.
Was it wise to follow the track into the heart of the wood? His dogs were good dogs, but—
The sudden sharp crash of a rifle echoed through the stillness, followed immediately by a second, and that by the sharp cry of a woman assailed by mortal terror, and then there came the quick yelp of dogs. He turned in his tracks and began to run back under the trees.
How long it was before he reached the main trail he never knew, but never in his life had he run so fast before. Fear was pounding at his heart. His dogs? If they were gone—
He reached the edge of the wood to find them still where he had left them, and his relief found expression in a quick “Thank God!” He looked round him, up and down the road and into the dark woods on either hand. There was nothing to be seen, and the coming of night had already shortened the range of vision. He stood listening intently. No sound broke the awful silence that had followed the shots and the curdling cry of fear. His hand, resting on the gee-pole of the sled, shook a little.
“It was a woman,” he whispered, “a white woman, at that. There’s some infernal mystery about. I wonder if Koona Dick—”