Gun-cases were handed out, rifles withdrawn, and the cases stowed away in the sleigh again. Fur coats were rolled in pairs, strapped, and slung behind the broad shoulders of the guides. Then snow-shoes were adjusted—skis for Geraldine; Miller walked westward and took post; Kemp's huge bulk closed the eastern extremity of the line, and between them, two and two at thirty paces apart, stood the hunters, Duane with Rosalie, Geraldine with Delancy, loading their magazines.
Ahead was an open wood of second growth, birch, beech, and maple; sunlight lay in white splashes here and there; nothing except these blinding pools of light and the soft impression of a fallen twig varied the immaculate snow surface as far as the eye could see.
"Forward and silence," called out Geraldine; the mellow swish of snow-shoes answered her, and she glided forward on her skis, instructing Delancy under her breath.
"The wind is right," she said. "They can't scent us here, though deeper in the mountains the wind cuts up and you never can be sure what it may do. There's just a chance of jumping a pig here, but there's a better chance when we strike the alder country. Try not to shoot a sow."
"How am I to tell?"
"Sows have no tusks that show. Be careful not to mistake the white patches of snow on a sow's jowl for tusks. They get them by rooting and it's not always easy to tell."
Delancy said very honestly: "You'll have to control me; I'm likely to let drive at anything."
"You're more likely to forget to shoot until the pig is out of sight," she whispered, laughing. "Look! Three trails! They were made last night."
"Boar?"
"Yes," she nodded, glancing at the deep cloven imprints. She leaned forward and glanced across the line at Miller, who caught her eye and signalled significantly with one hand.