"What'll we do, then?" he asked, after a little.
"He leaves a trail, don't he?" inquired Sam. "We must follow it."
"But what good—how can we ever catch up?"
"We've got to throw away our traps and extra duffle. We've got to travel as fast as we can without wearing ourselves out. He may try to go too fast, and so we may wear him down. It's our only show, anyway. If we lose him now, we'll never find him again. That trail is all we have to go by."
"How if it snows hard? It's getting toward spring storms."
"If it snows hard—well—" The old man fell silent, puffing away at his pipe. "One thing I want you to understand," he continued, looking up with a sudden sternness, "don't you ever take it on yourself to shoot that gun again. We're to take that man alive. The noise of the shot to-day was a serious thing; it gave Jingoss warning, and perhaps spoiled our chance to surprise him. But he might have heard us anyway. Let that go. But if you'd have killed that hound as you started out to do, you'd have done more harm than your fool head could straighten out in a lifetime. That hound—why—he's the best thing we've got. I'd—I'd almost rather lose our rifles than him—" he trailed off again into rumination.
Dick, sobered as he always was when his companion took this tone, inquired why, but received no answer. After a moment Sam began to sort the contents of the sledge, casting aside all but the necessities.
"What's the plan?" Dick ventured.
"To follow."
"How long do you think it will be before we catch him?"