A high cut-bank hid the food depot, a long, low building, from his sight until he was all but upon it.
As he rounded the point of the cut-bank he saw a man, whose back was turned to him, disappear around the northwest corner of the building.
“Did he see me?” he breathed. “I’ll play he didn’t.”
Hastily wheeling his reindeer about, he retreated to the shelter of the cut-bank.
Here after a moment’s thought he tied the reindeer to an out-cropping willow root, then, on hands and knees, crept back to the corner.
Peeping around the point, he stood at strained attention. He saw no one, heard no one. “And yet he might be spying at me,” he whispered. “Got to risk it, though.”
At that he leaped to his feet and dashed full speed toward the cabin. The distance was two hundred yards. His heart beat madly. Would he be shot down before he reached that shelter?
Now he had covered half the distance, now two-thirds, now three-quarters. That his footsteps might not be heard, he was now running on tiptoes. With his breath coming in short gasps, he leaped to a corner of the cabin, threw himself upon the snow close to the wall and was for the moment safe.
“So much, so good,” he breathed. “Now if only he doesn’t see me first.”