Homer left the kitchen with a rifle, a day's provisions, a lantern, and blankets. By the light of the lantern he hunted out the light, strong sled which was used for hauling turnips and carrots from the root-house to the stables. Thus completely equipped, he made straight for the nearest edge of timber, which lay to the southwest of the farmstead. He realized that it would be useless to look for tracks in the open—as useless as to accept old Ducat's suggestion that the fugitive and the girl had gone north toward Mark's trapping ground. He was a shrewd fellow, this Homer. He turned northward upon reaching the shelter of the spruces, with the lighted lantern swinging low and his gaze on the ground. No wild-goose chase for him! He would find the tracks and start right, even if he was forced to make a complete circuit of the clearings to do so. But he was in luck. He found the tracks before he had gone two hundred yards—tracks of two pairs of snowshoes and of one or two dogs, leading due west.
Flora awoke early and suddenly as the first faint gray of dawn sifted through the windless and frozen forest. She sat bolt upright at the instant of waking and stared about her in bewildered dismay for several seconds before she remembered the events of the night and realized her position. Her conscience smote her immediately and dismay gave way to shame and anxiety. She scrambled away from her snowy blankets, and the dogs leaped to their feet. She built the fire up from its ash-filmed, red heart, boiled snow water and brewed tea, breakfasted, and fed the dogs. She was away on Jim's trail again within a half-hour of opening her eyes.
She traveled through heavy woods, over uneven country, throughout the long, windless morning. The trail led up and down, up and down, but steadily westward. The colorless sunshine struck down to her through the somber browns and dull greens of the crowding forest. The dogs ran ahead and on the flanks, coursing rabbits and now and again putting a grouse up in a whirl of snow. She traveled fast, but was forced to rest often to ease her shoulders of the weight of the unaccustomed pack. She always did this by leaning back against a convenient tree. At noon she made a fire, fried bacon, and toasted bread and rested for an hour.
She had not gone more than five hundred yards after the noon rest when she came to the edge of a wide, white expanse of open country and the end of the visible trail. The wind of yesterday had filled and obliterated the imprints of Jim's webs with drifting snow. A sudden sense of desolation possessed the girl. She left the woods and advanced upon the barren with a strange reluctance of spirit. Clumps of dead trees and stunted brush showed here and there between her and the distant line of black hills, and to her right and left the white emptiness extended to the colorless horizon. She was without a compass, but she walked as straight a course as possible under the circumstances, by selecting and advancing upon one landmark after another. The sun, red as fire, was on the crest of the tumbled black horizon in front of her by the time she reached the western edge of the barren ground.
Flora moved to the right, in the shelter of the trees, seeking the lost trail. She went half a mile in that direction without success, then retraced her steps to the point at which she had entered the timber. The sun and its red glow were gone by now, the stars shone but faintly, the barren was a vague pallor and the forest was utter gloom. The girl realized the uselessness of continuing the search for Jim's tracks in the dark, and so dropped her pack and gun and felt about in the underbrush for dry wood for a fire. She found some dead stuff, hacked it down with the short ax, and dragged it out. Soon a flame was crackling in the rusty red needles. She fed it with dry boughs, and it leaped high and clear. She glanced around in the widening circle of wavering light, saw the dogs, the brown boles and drooping branches of the trees, the trampled white about the fire and, at the very edge of the firelight, a thing that might be a shadow and yet might be something else. She ran to it and stooped above it. It was a deep imprint of a snowshoe, a link of the lost trail. And here was another, and beyond yet another.
Flora reshouldered her pack, took up the gun and followed the tracks into the darkness, leaving the fire to flare and glow and expire of neglect. The dogs dashed after her. She moved slowly, stooping low after every step or two. The tracks led through tangles of brush. The dogs passed her and ran ahead. She struggled forward, fouling her snowshoes frequently and falling into the harsh brush and feathery snow. At last she heard the dogs barking and yelping far ahead.
CHAPTER XII
UNFORGIVABLE
By the note of the dogs' outcry, Flora knew that they had found a friend; and who could it be but Jim Todhunter? She continued to push and scramble forward. She kept a sharp and hopeful lookout ahead for the gleam of a fire, but in vain. At last she came to within a dozen yards of the dogs, who were still uttering occasional yaps and whines. But there was no fire. There was nothing but darkness.
"Is anyone there?" she asked.