"What's the matter with that dog?" he inquired on a sudden.
"Smells something; what's the difference? Let's get a move on us," replied Dick, carelessly.
"Hold on," ordered Sam.
He rapidly changed the dog-harness in order to put Mack in the lead.
"Mush! Mush on!" he commanded.
Immediately the hound, his nose low, uttered a deep, bell-like note and struck on the diagonal across the lake.
"Come on," said Sam; "he's got it."
Across the white waste of the lake, against the bite of the unobstructed wind, under the shelter of the bank opposite they ran at slightly accelerated speed, then without pause into the forest on the other side.
"Look," said the older woodsman, pointing ahead to a fallen trunk. It was the trail.
"That was handy," commented Dick, and promptly forgot about it. But Sam treasured the incident for the future.