“I understand,” he said, but forbore to add what was in his mind; namely, that if Dick Bracknell had not died on the previous night, North Star would be no longer the sanctuary it had been.
They walked forward for a moment without speaking. A rise in the ground covered with snow-laden saskatoon bushes hid the river from them for a little time, and as they breasted it, and the river came into view again, they surprised a pedestrian climbing up the bank. It was Mr. Rayner.
He was obviously a little startled by the meeting, but a moment later recovered himself.
“Been out for a constitutional,” he explained, “as far as the bend of the river, and I’ve had quite sufficient. Are you ready to return?”
The girl nodded, but the corporal, whose eyes were surveying the empty landscape in front, shook his head.
“I shall walk on a little,” he said, “I may be going up stream tomorrow. The Elkhorn falls in somewhere about here, doesn’t it?”
“Just beyond the bluff there,” answered Joy.
“Then I’ll take a look at it, and see what the trail is like.”
He nodded and walked on leaving Joy Gargrave to return with Rayner. He waited until they were out of sight and then descended to the frozen surface of the river, where the going was easier, the trail having been packed by prospectors moving up and down. He reached the bluff in a short time, but did not go round it. His gaze was arrested by the trail of a sled which had come down the bank to the river at a point just below the bluff, and by recent footmarks. He remembered the figure he had seen whilst walking with Joy Gargrave, unquestionably that of Rayner, for there were his footmarks turning south from the bluff. A thought struck him, and examining the snow carefully, he found no tracks running northward. A little puzzled he looked at the sled trail again, and there made the discovery that the single footmarks that ran side by side with the sled-trail, had been made not by one pair of feet but by two, some one having quite recently adapted his stride to the tracks already made. Puzzled and interested he followed the sled trail up the bank and began to trace it through the wood at the top.