To Johnny this silence was eloquent. What had passed in Gordon Duncan’s mind? Had he read in this freshly discovered trail signs of danger? Had he feared that his plans might be brought to nought? Had he, in the end, decided to risk it, to take the chance, to follow the trail? To all these questions Johnny could find no certain answer.
Noon came. They ate a cold lunch, then pressed forward. This day the old man seemed eager and tireless.
“There’s more to him than I thought,” Johnny told himself as he mopped his brow. “He may have a trick heart, but he certainly can cover the miles, may live to see us all in our graves yet.”
By mid-afternoon they were passing over a level stretch of forest. To the right, the left, before, behind, short stout fir trees stood like sentries. The silence about them was oppressive. Not a branch quivered, not a pine needle stirred. When a white owl rose and went flap-flapping away, his wings beat noisily.
In a moment he was gone, and only the steady pat-pat of feet on the trail was to be heard.
Then slowly, as in a dream, there came to their overstrained ears a sound. Faint, indistinct, it seemed at first but the approach of wind through the treetops.
As they marched straight on this sound took form, the sound of many small tinkling bells.
“Bells!” the girl whispered, stopping short in her tracks. “Sleighbells. A dog team.” She clutched at her mackinaw as if to still the beating of her heart.
Without a word, the old man turned and marched away at right angles to the trail. There was no concealing their tracks here. The ground was level, the soft snow ten inches deep. Soon, however, they came to a barren ridge. Here they might walk upon rocks. Soon they were lost from sight in a dark clump of fir trees.
There, breathing silently, uttering not a word, they waited.