Jan Stenson was very pleased with himself. He boasted about his own cleverness to Jukes as they took up the trail and followed on down the lake. For several miles they went and then found the trail bore away towards the left, to the northern shore. Still following on, they presently came to the rocky promontory and found here evidence of movements, finally of a dead fire and a camp.
Stenson announced that the pair had come down from the head of the lake on the previous evening and camped here. They must have gone on this morning, probably about the same time that the pursuers broke camp on the southern shore.
It was a hopeless position for the fugitives, said Jan Stenson.
After a very little while taken up in prospecting around this place, the hunters took up the trail again and followed at a steady, rapid pace.
The northern shore began to grow more wooded, and after a bit the end of the lake came in view and a belt of trees, thick forest again where the river left the lake and started on its way to join the great wide stream of Moose River a long way farther east.
It was just about here that Jukes declared he saw something on the snow, fleeing towards the mouth of the river. Stenson had not quite such good eyes, but he thought it likely enough there was someone just ahead, so they increased their efforts. The trail was now fresh and very distinct. Two pair of snowshoes and the sled runners. Because of the mildness in the air the snow was soft. The sun shone over the dazzling world everywhere, and the trees on the shore dripped.
When the two men came to the river head there was a sound of trickling water here and there, and the edges of the snow at the banks were mushy and rotten. Underneath was the force of the stream within banks, not like the broad and rather shallow lake. Before long the ice would heave up as the water swelled, then it would burst and go down river in a jumbled mass. The course of the stream turned in a curve through the forest and the trail was lost round this. On pressed the two men, and when they had passed this curve they saw before them a straight vista of perhaps half a mile, for in that clear atmosphere distance is shortened.
At the far end of it were moving figures, a little group going ahead at a good pace. Considering the distance it was not easy to tell about the persons in the group, but the low shape on the snow was plainly a sled.