And then, just before two o'clock, the wind did them a great service. Down the long, straight lines of its flight came distinctly the creak of snow-shoes. Evidently the traveller, whoever he might be, was retracing his steps.
At once Sam overturned the sledge, thus anchoring the dogs, and Dick ran ahead to conceal himself. May-may-gwán offered a suggestion.
"The dogs may bark too soon," said she.
Instantly Sam was at work binding fast their jaws with buckskin thongs. The girl assisted him. When the task was finished he ran forward to join Dick, hidden in the bushes.
Eight months of toil focussed in the moment. The faint creaking of the shoes came ever louder down the wind. Once it paused. Dick caught his breath. Had the traveller discovered anything suspicious? He glanced behind him.
"Where's the girl?" he hissed between his teeth. "Damn her, she's warned him!"
But almost with Sam's reply the creaking began again, and after an instant of indetermination continued its course.
Then suddenly the woodsmen, with a simultaneous movement, raised their rifles, and with equal unanimity lowered them, gasping with astonishment. Dick's enemy, Ah-tek, the renegade Chippewa of Haukemah's band on the Missináibie, stepped from the concealment of the bushes.