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
return to the scrub timber again.
That night the last of the blizzard that had raged for days
exhausted itself. For a week clear weather followed. It was
intensely cold, but no snow fell. In that week Philip traveled a
hundred and twenty miles westward.
It was on the eighth night, as he sat near his fire in a thick
clump of dwarf spruce, that the thing happened which Pierre
Breault, with a fatalism born of superstition, knew would come to
pass. And it is curious that on this night, and in the very hour
of the strange happening, Philip had with infinite care and a
great deal of trouble rewoven the fifty hairs back into the form
of the golden snare.
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