"You?" he cried, astonished. "How do you know that?"
"By the knots," Maskwa answered, stooping to point out little dents in the snow pattern. "See how they lie in a curve? No one but Maskwa makes them that way!"
"Whose feet?" demanded Dunvegan, with swift suspicion. "Whose feet are in those shoes?"
The fort runner felt the pressed flakes gently before speaking. He arose immediately from the stooping posture.
"The Little Fool's," was his response. "And he has just passed here!"
"Gaspard Follet's tracks!" exclaimed the chief trader incredulously. "Maskwa, are you sure you are not mistaken?"
"I am not mistaken, Strong Father," the Ojibway declared gravely. "In the summer moons I made the shoes for the Little Fool. Give me leave to follow. I will bring him to you. He is no farther away than the ridge of balsam."
"Go," ordered Dunvegan curtly.
The fort runner launched himself into the gloom of the stunted shrubbery. Bunching where their leader was halted, the Hudson's Bay men waited silently. Presently there sounded the double crunch of two pairs of raquettes on the brittle crust. The branches of the dwarfed evergreens swayed. Maskwa strode out, dragging a diminutive figure by one arm.
"Here, Strong Father, is the Little Fool," he announced without emotion.