The child and the young bird out of the nest,
They ride to the hunt no more, no more!"

They travelled beyond all bounds of civilisation; beyond the northernmost
Indian villages, until the features of the landscape became more rugged
and solemn, and at last they paused at a place which the Indian called
Misty Mountain, and where, disappearing for an hour, he returned with a
team of Eskimo dogs, keen, quick-tempered, and enduring. They had all
now recovered from the disturbing sentiments of the first portion of the
journey; life was at full tide; the spirit of the hunter was on them.

At length one night they camped in a vast pine grove wrapped in coverlets
of snow and silent as death. Here again Pierre became moody and alert
and took no part in the careless chat at the camp-fire led by Shon
McGann. The man brooded and looked mysterious. Mystery was not pleasing
to Trafford. He had his own secrets, but in the ordinary affairs of life
he preferred simplicity. In one of the silences that fell between Shon's
attempts to give hilarity to the occasion, there came a rumbling far-off
sound, a sound that increased in volume till the earth beneath them
responded gently to the vibration. Trafford looked up inquiringly at
Pierre, and then at the Indian, who, after a moment, said slowly: "Above
us are the hills of the Mighty Men, beneath us is the White Valley. It
is the tramp of buffalo that we hear. A storm is coming, and they go to
shelter in the mountains."

The information had come somewhat suddenly, and McGann was the first to
recover from the pleasant shock: "It's divil a wink of sleep I'll get
this night, with the thought of them below there ripe for slaughter, and
the tumble of fight in their beards."