hard, shot like snow that the blizzard had rolled in off the open
spaces.

From this point Pierre marked off accurately the direction Bram
had taken the morning after the hunt, and Philip drew the point of
his compass to the now invisible trail. Almost instantly he drew
his conclusion.

"Bram is keeping to the scrub timber along the edge of the
Barren," he said to Pierre. "That is where I shall follow. You
might add that much to what I have written to MacVeigh. But about
the snare, Pierre Breault, say not a word. Do you understand? If
he is a loup-garou man, and weaves golden hairs out of the winds--"

"I will say nothing, M'sieu," shuddered Pierre.

They shook hands, and parted in silence. Philip set his face to
the west, and a few moments later, looking back, he could no
longer see Pierre. For an hour after that he was oppressed by the
feeling that he was voluntarily taking a desperate chance. For
reasons which he had arrived at during the night he had left his
dogs and sledge with Pierre, and was traveling light. In his
forty-pound pack, fitted snugly to his shoulders, were a three
pound silk service-tent that was impervious to the fiercest wind,
and an equal weight of cooking utensils. The rest of his burden,
outside of his rifle, his Colt's revolver and his ammunition, was
made up of rations, so much of which was scientifically compressed
into dehydrated and powder form that he carried on his back, in a
matter of thirty pounds, food sufficient for a month if he
provided his meat on the trail. The chief article in this