“Vite! Queeck! Queeck!” said Le Grand, as he dumped the food-bags and blankets from his sledge in a heap. “Ve goin’ catch heem! He vone beeg fool to mak’ so smoke!”
The others grasped his idea, and hastily piled their sledge-loads next to his on the snow. “Allons!” said Tritou. The dogs were whirled back on to the barren, and whips were used furiously as they got under way. “Musha! Musha-a-a-hei-i!” the men yelled, and the dogs laid themselves flat to the crust in their burst of speed. As the five sledges approached the smoke they slowed up. “You’ gun prêt?” muttered Le Grand to Tritou. The latter looked at his rifle, and nodded. They advanced carefully, checking the dogs with hoarse commands. “V’y for h’afraid?” said Tritou. “Five to vone, an’ heem no gun!” They came to the fire, and saw the pelts. “Hees track vite!” whispered Le Grand; he felt sure of their man now. “Dees eet!” answered Tritou, as with sharp eyes he found the snow-shoe tracks leading down into the forest. “Comme, den!” he called, and started his dogs on a jog-trot, watching the indentations in the snow as he proceeded.
“Dix dollaires et des fine blankeet,” he thought to himself, and looked at his rifle again, holding it in the hollow of his arm.
They travelled on thus in single file for half an hour, Tritou always in the lead, spying out the snow-shoe marks as he went. Suddenly he stopped; the tracks had ended!
“Ah, diable sacré-é! Ees he birrrd, den?” he asked the others.
They fastened the dogs together, and spread out fanwise to look for the lost trail. Two hours they hunted, but in vain.
“Maledictions dam’!” said Tritou again. “He ees gone! Attend toi, Verbaux: ze h’end of dis affaire she not comme encore; some taime ve veel see dat!” and he cursed fiercely.
The five went to the sledges, and in silence started back across the barren.
Meanwhile Jules tramped on into the woods; when he thought that he had gone far enough for his purpose, he took off his snow-shoes, slung them on his back, and swung himself up into a tree; for two hundred yards he worked his way on the branches of the spruce grove; the trees clustered thickly together in the little valley, and he had no trouble in gaining the hill on the far side.