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Noel was stealing along warily, his arrow ready on the string.  Mooka beside him was watching a faint cloud of mist, the breath of caribou, that blurred at times the dark tree-line in the distance, when one of those mysterious warnings that befall the hunter in the far North rested upon them suddenly like a heavy hand.

I know not what it is,—­what lesser pressure of air, to which we respond like a barometer; or what unknown chords there are within us that sleep for years in the midst of society and that waken and answer, like an animal’s, to the subtle influence of nature,—­but one can never be watched by an unseen wild animal without feeling it vaguely; and one can never be so keen on the trail that the storm, before it breaks, will not whisper a warning to turn back to shelter before it is too late.  To Noel and Mooka, alone on the barrens, the sun was no dimmer than before; the heavy gray bank of clouds still held sullenly to its place on the horizon; and no eyes, however keen, would have noticed the tiny dark spots that centered and glowed upon them over the rim of the little hollow where the wolves were watching.  Nevertheless, a sudden chill fell upon them both.  They stopped abruptly, shivering a bit, drawing closer together and scanning the waste keenly to know what it all meant.

“Mitcheegeesookh, the storm!” said Noel sharply; and without another word they turned and hurried back on their own trail.  In a short half hour the world would be swallowed up in chaos.  To be caught out on the barrens meant to be lost; and to be lost here without fire and shelter meant death, swift and sure.  So they ran on, hoping to strike the woods before the blizzard burst upon them.

They were scarcely half-way to shelter when the white flakes began to whirl around them.  With startling, terrible swiftness the familiar world vanished; the guiding trail was blotted out, and nothing but a wolf’s instinct could have held a straight course in the blinding fury of the storm.  Still they held on bravely, trying in vain to keep their direction by the eddying winds, till Mooka stumbled twice at the same hollow over a hidden brook, and they knew they were running blindly in a circle of death.  Frightened at the discovery they turned, as the caribou do, keeping their backs steadily to the winds, and drifted slowly away down the long barren.

Hour after hour they struggled on, hand in hand, without a thought of where they were going.  Twice Mooka fell and lay still, but was dragged to her feet and hurried onward again.  The little hunter’s own strength was almost gone, when a low moan rose steadily above the howl and hiss of the gale.  It was the spruce woods, bending their tops to the blast and groaning at the strain.  With a wild whoop Noel plunged forward, and the next instant they were safe within the woods.  All around them the flakes sifted steadily, silently down into the thick covert, while the storm passed with a great roar over their heads.