We were still some days’ journey from the fort, and for the last three days not an animal had we seen.
Alick again began to turn, I thought, wolfish eyes at Bouncer. The poor dog walked on steadily dragging the sleigh, and looking up with an affectionate glance at our faces when any of us passed, happily unconscious of the fate threatening him.
Even Pat was at length beginning to despair. Alick cheered us on. “You must not give in, boys; you must not give in,” he exclaimed over and over again.
I felt that his advice, though good, was impracticable. The evening was approaching. I could scarcely drag one foot after another. We yet had some distance to go before we could reach a valley which lay below us, with a stream in summer flowing through it, and a grove of trees by its side.
Unable longer to support myself, I sank down on my knees, my gun dropping to the ground. My eyes were dimmed by my frozen eyelashes.
Alick and Pat were assisting me to rise, when Martin, who was a little ahead, exclaimed, “I see something coming along the valley: it’s a cariole. There’s another and another.”
I passed the cuff of my coat over my eyes. My companions held up their hands and shouted at the top of their voices, Bouncer at the same time lifting up his head and barking with all his might, as if conscious of the importance of being heard.
The carioles came on at full speed along the valley, their drivers running behind them. There were twenty or thirty of them, each drawn by eight or ten powerful dogs. I could now see them clearly.
Then came a number of baggage-sledges with more men on snow-shoes, all keeping up the same steady pace.
Our dread was that the travellers would pass without seeing us. Who they could be we could not tell, but they were evidently coming from the direction of the place to which we were bound. Again we shouted and waved our hands, and then Alick bethought him of firing off his gun. We all discharged ours, and presently we saw the leading sledge stop, the driver making a signal to the one behind him. It was passed along the line, and the whole train came to a halt.