began. The result, however, was beyond question. Smaller, neater, more
cleanly modeled, they formed now an exact and careful duplicate of the
larger tracks beside them. The feet that produced them had, therefore,
also changed. And something in his mind reared up with loathing and with
terror as he saw it.

Simpson, for the first time, hesitated; then, ashamed of his alarm and
indecision, took a few hurried steps ahead; the next instant stopped
dead in his tracks. Immediately in front of him all signs of the trail
ceased; both tracks came to an abrupt end. On all sides, for a hundred
yards and more, he searched in vain for the least indication of their
continuance. There was--nothing.

The trees were very thick just there, big trees all of them, spruce,
cedar, hemlock; there was no underbrush. He stood, looking about him,
all distraught; bereft of any power of judgment. Then he set to work to
search again, and again, and yet again, but always with the same result:
_nothing_. The feet that printed the surface of the snow thus far had
now, apparently, left the ground!

And it was in that moment of distress and confusion that the whip of
terror laid its most nicely calculated lash about his heart. It dropped
with deadly effect upon the sorest spot of all, completely unnerving
him. He had been secretly dreading all the time that it would come--and
come it did.

Far overhead, muted by great height and distance, strangely thinned and
wailing, he heard the crying voice of Défago, the guide.

The sound dropped upon him out of that still, wintry sky with an effect