Following the dog’s steps in the snow, Johnny led the way into the tangled brush. To his great joy he found indications of a rough trail.
“May have been made by moose or caribou, for all that,” he told himself.
“What was that?” the girl exclaimed suddenly, stopping short.
From behind them had come a cracking sound.
Dropping the bundle of arrows he carried, Johnny sprang back over the trail.
“It’s gone!” There was a touch of despair in his voice as he called to his companions. “The boat’s gone! The branch tore away.”
Never in his life had he felt more miserable. No food, no blankets, no shelter in a strange land, hundreds of miles from known human habitation, with a blizzard tearing at them.
“And it’s all my fault,” he said. “It was I who tied the boat. I should have tested the moorings.”
“No,” said Gordon Duncan. There was force and dignity in his tone. “It is not entirely your fault. We were there to offer counsel. And this is not the end. It is but the beginning. We have bows and arrows. There is game here as elsewhere. There is always a way to prepare a shelter and make a fire.”
“But first we must find Tico,” said the girl, who had just come up to them. “I can’t imagine what madness has seized him.”