with fire smouldering in his eyes and his breath coming fast through his thin nostrils.
In the tepee camp arose suddenly the deep baying of hounds; the sharp yelps and strong-throated snarls which told where the still lawless spirits of the North gave battle. Shrill French screams and curses cut as suddenly into the noise, mingled with the hissing of the long caribou-whips. The roar died to a mutter of growling; to silence, and Dick went to bed, remembering the words of the breed-dandy, "They will have it," and half-envious of the giddes because he knew that within the hour they would have it again.
He crossed the Lake next morning with little Jack Lowndes' kisses on his lips, and still something of the hot vigour of those long-dead men possessing him. And this mood held with him merrily through the daily danger that threatened him. For the Chinook blew, day after day; and hour after hour the ice moaned and creaked, surrendering to its persistence. A policeman outside the barracks at Smith's Landing waved a hand to him as he swung past one evening, for he could travel now only in the frosty hours.
"Good luck to your hunting," he shouted; and then he too was gone, and only the soft sputtering of the mush ice on the runners broke the silence of the world.
All Dick's will was bent on reaching Fort Resolution before his hold-up came, and he did it, with the threat ever on his heels and the first great cannon-like reports and thundering groans of the bursting heavy mass to keep him awake on the second night after he reached the Lake.
It was from Resolution that the real tracking of Andree would begin. So far there had been the one road only for her; but on the Great Slave Lake there were so many trails, and he might have to draw a half-dozen covers before he marked her down. There was the Fullerton trail which he and Tempest had taken, with its medley of intersecting lakes. There was the trail direct north to the Great Bear Lake where long-dead Hudson Bay posts hold yet glamouring traditions of bullet-riddled palisades, and mahogany furniture; of the grim kings of the Company and the dare-devil men with bright handkerchiefs bound
