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Show It? rvn r?? r$ ? Tl T"r ;? If! Hill ii tiiiliv5 il ai(U& l p if By EDISOfJ MAESHAUi 3 i.................... ......... .................................. ....- y Copyright. ISM. by Little. Brown & Co. without food. Keep on and try to forget for-get 'cm. Maybe we can keep 'em bluffed." But as the hours passed, it became increasingly difficult to forget the wolf pack. It was only a matter of turning the head and peering for an instant into the shadows to catch a glimpse of one of the creatures. Their usual fear of men, always their first emotion, emo-tion, had given way wholly to a hunting hunt-ing cunning; an effort to procure their game without too great risk of their own lives. In the desperation of their hunger they could not remember such things as the fear of men. They spread out farther, and at last Dan looked up to find one of the gray beasts waiting, like a shadow himself, in the shadow of a tree not one hundred hun-dred feet from the sled. Snowbird whipped out her pistol. "Don't dare!" Dan's voice cracked out to her. He didn't speak loudly; yet the words came so sharp and commanding, com-manding, so like pistol fire itself, that they penetrated into her consciousness and choked back the nervous reflexes that in an instant might have lost them one of their three precious shells. She caught herself with a sob. Dan shouted at the wolf, and it melted into the shadows. 'Vou won't do It again, Snowbird?" he asked her very humbly. But his meaning was clear. He was not as skilled with a pistol as she; but if her nerves were breaking, the gun must be taken from her hands. The three shells must be saved to the moment of utmost need. "No," she told him, looking straight into his eyes. "I won't do it again." He believed her. He knew that she spoke the truth. He met her eyes with a half smile. Then, wholly without warning, Fate played its last trump. Again the wilderness reminded them of Its might, and their brave spirits were almost broken by the utter re-morselessness re-morselessness of the blow. The girl went on her face with a crack of wood. counts because I didn't win. It's just i'aio. Snowbird. It's no one's fault, but maybe. In this world, nothing is ever anyone's fault." For in the twilight of those winter woods, in the shadow of death itself, perhaps he was catching glimmerings of eternal truths that arc hidden from all but the most far-seeing eyes. "And this Is the end?" she asked him. She spoke very' bravely. "Xo!" His hand tightened on hers. "Xo. so long as an ounce of strength remains. To fight never to give up may God give me spirit for It till I die;" And this was no idle prayer. His eyes raised to the starry sky as he spoke. "But, son," Lennox asked him rather rath-er quietly, "what can you do? The wolves aren't going to wait a great deal longer, and we can't go on." "There's one thing more one mora trial to make," Dan answered. "I thought about it at first, but it was too long a chance to try if there was any other way. And I suppose you thought of it too." -"Overtaking Cranston?" "Of course. And it sounds like a crazy dream. But listen, tboth of you. If we have got to die, up here in the snow and it looks like we had what is the thing you want done worst before be-fore we go?" Lennox's hands clasped, and he leaned forward on the' sled. "Pay Cranston !" he said. "Yes!" Dan's yoice rang. "Cranston's "Crans-ton's never going to be paid unless we do It. There will be no signs of incendiarism in-cendiarism at the house, and no proofs. They'll find our bodies in the snow, and we'll just be a mystery, with no one made to pay. The evidence evi-dence in my pocket will be taken by Cranston, some time this winter. If 1 don't make him pay, he never will pay. And that's one reason why I'm going to try to carry out this plan I've got. "The second reason is that It's the one hope we have left. I take it that none of us are deceived on that point. And no man can die tamely if he is a man while there's a chance. I mean a young man, like me not one who is old and tired. It sounds perfectly silly to talk about finding Cranston's winter win-ter quarters, and then, with my hare hands, conquering him, taking his food and his blankets and his snowshoes and his rifle, to fight away these wolves, and bringing 'em back here." "You wouldn't be barehanded," the girl reminded him. "You could have the pistol." He didn't even seem to hear her. "I've been thinking about It. It's a long, long chance much worse than the chance we had of getting out by straight walking. I think we could have made it, if the wolves had kept off and the snowshoe hadn't broken. It would have nearly killed us, but I believe we could have got out. That's why I didn't try this other way first. A man with his bare hands hasn't much of a chance against another with a rifle, and I don't want you to be too hopeful. And of course, the hardest problem Is finding his camp. "But I do feel sure of one thing: that he is back to his old trapping line on the North Fork somewhere south of here and his camp is somewhere on the river. I think he would have gone there so that he could cut off any attempt I might make to get through with those letters. My plan Is to start back at an angle that will carry me between the North Fork and our old house. Somewhere in there I'll find his tracks, the tracks he made when he first came over to burn up the house. I suppose he was careful to mix 'em up after once he arrived here, but the first part, of the way he likely walked straight toward the house from his camp. Somewhere, If I go that way, I'll cross his trail within with-in 10 miles at least. Then I'll backtrack back-track him to his camp." "And never come back !" the girl' cried. "Maybe not. But at least everything every-thing that can be done will be done. Nothing will be left. Xo regrets. We will have made the last trial. I'm not going to waste any time. Snowbird. The sooner we get your fire built the better." (TO BE CONTJNVED.) CHAPTER II Continued. 20 "We'll rest now." Dan told them at ten o'clock. "The sun is warm enough so that we won't need much of a fire. And we'll try to get rive hours' sleep." "Too long, if we're going to make it out," Lennox objected. "That leaves a workday of nineteen hours," Dan persisted. "Not any too little. Five hours it will he." He found where the snow had drifted drift-ed against a great, dead log, leaving the white covering only a foot in depth on the lee side.' He began to scrape the snow away, then hacked at the log with his ax until he had procured pro-cured a piece of comparatively dry wood from Its center. They all stood breathless while he lighted the little pile of kindling and heaped It with green wood the only wood procurable. procur-able. But It didn't burn freely. It smoked fitfully, threatening to die out, and emitting very little heat. But they didn't particularly care. The sun was warm above, as always in the mountain winters of southern Oregon. Snowbird and Dan cleared spaces beside the fire and slept. Lennox, Len-nox, who had rested on the journey, lay on his sled and with his uninjured arm tried to hack enough wood from the saplings that Dan had cut to keep the fire burning. At three they got up, still tired and aching In their bones from exposure. Twenty-four hours had passed since they had tasted food, and. their unre-plenished unre-plenished systems complained. There Is no better engine in the wide world than the human body. It will stand more neglect and abuse than the finest steel motors ever made by the hands of craftsmen. A man may fast many days If he lies quietly in one place and keeps warm. But fasting is a deadly proposition while ' pulling sledges over the snow. Dan was less hopeful now. His face told what his words did not. The lines cleft deeper about his lips and eyes ; and Snowbird's heart ached when he tried to encourage her with a smile. It was a wan, strange smile that couldn't quite hide the first sickness sick-ness of despair. The shadows quickly lengthened simply leaping over the snow from the fast-falling sun. The twilight deepened, deep-ened, the snow turned gray, and then, In a vague way, the journey began to partake of a quality of unreality. It was not that the cold and the snow and their hunger were not entirely real, or that the wilderness was no longer naked to their eyes. It was just that their whole effort seemed like some dreadful, unburdened journey in a dream a stumbling advance under difficulties too many and real to be tru-;. The first sign was the far-off cry of the wolf pack. It was very faint, simply a stir in the eardrums, yet It was entirely clear. That clear, cold mountain air was a perfect telephone system, conveying a message distinctly, distinct-ly, no matter how faintly. There were no tall buildings or cities to disturb dis-turb the ether waves. And all three of them knew at the same Instant It was not exactly the cry they had heard before. They couldn't have told just why, even If they had wished to talk about It. In some dim way, It had lost the strange quality of despair It had held before. It was as If the pack were running with renewed life, that each wolf was calling to another with a dreadful sort of exultation. It was an excited cry, too not the long, sad song they had learned to listen for. It sounded Immediately behind them. They couldn't help but listen. No human pars could have shut out the sound. But none of them pretended that they had heard. And this was the worst sign of -nil. Each one of the three was hoping against hope In his very heart; and at the same time, hoping hop-ing that the others did not understand. For a loig time, as the darkness deepened about them, the forests were still. Perhaps. Dan thought, he had been mistaken after all. His shoulders straightened. Then the chorus blared again. The man looked hack nt the girl, smiling Into her eyes. Lennox lay as If asleep, the lines of his dark face curiously pronounced. And the girl, because she was of the mountains, body nnd soul, answered Dan's smile. Then they knew that nil of them knew the truth. Not even nn inexperienced ear could have any delusions about the pack song now. It was that oldest old-est of wilderness songs, the hunting-cry hunting-cry that frenzied song of blood-lust that the wolf pack titters when It Is running on the trail of game. It had found the track of living flesh at last. "There's no use stopping, or trying to climb n tree," Dan told them simply. sim-ply. "In the first place, Lennox can't do It. In the second, we've got to take a chance for coldjind hunger can get up a tree where the wolf pack can't." He spoke wholly without emotion. Once more he tightened the traces of the sled. "I've hrard that sometimes the pack will chase a man for days without attacking," at-tacking," Lennox told them. "It all depends o now long they've joDe "Maybe We Can Keep Them Bluffed." Her snow shoe had been cracked by her fall of the day before, when running run-ning to the fire, and whether she struck some other obstruction In the snow, or whether the cracked wood had simply given way under her weight, mattered not even enough for them to Investigate. As in all grent disasters, only t?t result remained. The result in t'ji caae was that her snowshoe, with -at vfeh she could not walk a all the f kv, was irreparably irrepara-bly broken. "Fate has staeXd the cards against us," Lennox tolrf them, after the first moment's horror from the broken snowshoe. But no one answered him. The girl, white-faced, kept her wide eyes on Dan. lie seemed to be peering into tho shadows beside the trail, as If he were watching for the gray forms that now nnd then glided from tree to tree. In reality, he was not looking for wolves. He was gazing down Into his own soul, measuring his own spirit for the trial that lay before him. The girl, unable to step with the broken snowshoe. rested her weight on one foot nnd hobbled like n bird with broken wings across to him. No sight of nil this terrible Journey had been more rirendful In her father's eyes than this. It seemed to split orn the strong heart of the man. She touched her hand to his arm. "I'm sorry, Dnn," she told him. "You tried so hard " Just one little sound broke from his thront n strange, deep gasp that could not he suppressed. Then he caught her hand In his nnd kissed It again nnd again. "Do you think I care about that?" he asked her. "I only wish I could have done more and what I have done doesn't count. Just as In my fight with Crtinston, notblng |