noon, when he built a small fire to make tea and warm his bannock,
he took the golden tress from his wallet and examined it even more
closely than last night. It might have come from a woman's head
only yesterday, so bright and shimmery was it in the pale light of
the midday sun. He was amazed at the length and fineness of it,
and the splendid texture of each hair. Possibly there were half a
hundred hairs, each of an equal and unbroken length.

He ate his dinner, and went on. Three days of storm had covered
utterly every trace of the trail made by Bram and his wolves. He
was convinced, however, that Bram would travel in the scrub timber
close to the Barren. He had already made up his mind that this
Barren--the Great Barren of the unmapped north--was the great snow
sea in which Bram had so long found safety from the law. Beaching
five hundred miles east and west, and almost from the Sixtieth
degree to the Arctic Ocean, its un-peopled and treeless wastes
formed a tramping ground for him as safe as the broad Pacific to
the pirates of old. He could not repress a shivering exclamation
as his mind dwelt on this world of Bram's. It was worse than the
edge of the Arctic, where one might at least have the Eskimo for
company.

He realized the difficulty of his own quest. His one chance lay in
fair weather, and the discovery of an old trail made by Bram and
his pack. An old trail would lead to fresher ones. Also he was
determined to stick to the edge of the scrub timber, for if the
Barren was Bram's retreat he would sooner or later strike a trail
--unless Bram had gone straight out into the vast white plain
shortly after he had made his camp in the forest near Pierre
Breault's cabin. In that event it might be weeks before Bram would