"How did you get away?"
"We were out of food. They went hunting. West took my snowshoes. Onistah came. He saw them coming back and gave me his shoes. He went and hid in the woods. But they'll see his tracks. They'll find him. We must hurry back."
"Yes," agreed McRae. "I'm thinkin' if West finds the lad, he'll do him ill."
Morse spoke for the first time, his voice dry as a chip. "We'd better hurry on, Beresford and I. You and Miss McRae can bring the sled."
McRae hesitated, but assented. There might be desperate need of haste. "That'll be the best way. But you'll be carefu', lad. Yon West's a wolf. He'd as lief kill ye baith as look at ye."
The younger men were out of sight over the brow of the hill long before McRae and Jessie had the dogs harnessed.
"You'll ride, lass," the father announced.
She demurred. "We can go faster if I walk. Let me drive. Then you can break trail where the snow's soft."
"No. You'll ride, my dear. There's nae sic a hurry. The lads'll do what's to be done. On wi' ye."
Jessie got into the cariole and was bundled up to the tip of the nose with buffalo robes, the capote of her own fur being drawn over the head and face. For riding in the sub-Arctic winter is a freezing business.