possible that across from them was a squatter's cabin; and yet if this
were so, and the girl was going to it, why had she told him that she was
a stranger in the town? And why had she come to him for the assistance
she promised to request of him instead of seeking it of those whom
she knew?

He asked himself these questions without putting them in words, and not
until they were climbing up the frozen bank of the stream, with the
shadows of the forest growing deeper about them, did he speak again.

"You told me you were a stranger," he said, stopping his companion where
the light of the stars fell on the face which she turned up to him. She
smiled, and nodded affirmatively.

"You seem pretty well acquainted over here," he persisted. "Where are we
going?"

This time she responded with an emphatic negative shake of her head, at
the same time pointing with her free hand to the well-defined trail that
wound up from the ferry landing into the forest. Earlier in the day
Howland had been told that this was the Great North Trail that led into
the vast wildernesses beyond the Saskatchewan. Two days before, the
factor from Lac Bain, the Chippewayan and the Crees had come in over it.
Its hard crust bore the marks of the sledges of Jean Croisset and the
men from the Lac la Ronge country. Since the big snow, which had fallen
four feet deep ten days before, a forest man had now and then used this
trail on his way down to the edge of civilization; but none from Prince
Albert had traveled it in the other direction. Howland had been told
this at the hotel, and he shrugged his shoulders in candid bewilderment
as he stared down into the girl's face. She seemed to understand his