and it was this darkness that Philip dreaded as he waited beside
his fire.

In the impenetrable gloom of that hour Bram might come. It was
possible that he had been waiting for that darkness. Philip looked
at his watch. It was four o'clock. Once more he went to his tree,
and waited. In another quarter of an hour he could not see the
tree beside which he stood. And Bram did not come. With the
beginning of the gray dawn Philip rebuilt his fire for the third
time and prepared to cook his breakfast. He felt the need of
coffee--strong coffee--and he boiled himself a double ration. At
seven o'clock he was ready to take up the trail.

He believed now that some mysterious and potent force had
restrained Bram Johnson from taking advantage of the splendid
opportunity of that night to rid himself of an enemy. As he made
his way through the scrub timber along the edge of the Barren it
was with the feeling that he no longer desired Bram as a prisoner.
A thing more interesting than Bram had entered into the adventure.
It was the golden snare. Not with Bram himself, but only at the
end of Bram's trail, would he find what the golden snare stood
for. There he would discover the mystery and the tragedy of it, if
it meant anything at all. He appreciated the extreme hazard of
following Bram to his long hidden retreat. The man he might outwit
in pursuit and overcome in fair fight, if it came to a fight, but
against the pack he was fighting tremendous odds.

What this odds meant had not fully gripped him until he came
cautiously out of the timber half an hour later and saw what was
left of the caribou the pack had killed. The bull had fallen