They had with them about fifty pounds of frozen fish for the dogs and provisions enough to last the three of them four or five meals.  Whaley had brought West supplies enough to carry him only to Lookout, where he was to stock for a long traverse into the wilds.

As the hours passed there grew up between the gambler and the girl a tacit partnership of mutual defense.  No word was spoken of it, but each knew that the sulky brute in the chimney corner was dangerous.  He would be held by no scruples of conscience, no laws of friendship or decency.  If the chance came he would strike.

The storm raged and howled.  It flung itself at the cabin with what seemed a ravenous and implacable fury.  The shriek of it was now like the skirling of a thousand bagpipes, again like the wailing of numberless lost souls.

Inside, West snored heavily, his ill-shaped head drooping on the big barrel chest of the man.  Jessie slept while Whaley kept guard.  Later she would watch in her turn.

There were moments when the gale died down, but only to roar again with a frenzy of increased violence.

The gray day broke and found the blizzard at its height.

CHAPTER XXV

FOR THE WEE LAMB LOST

Beresford, in front of the C.N.  Morse & Company trading-post, watched his horse paw at the snow in search of grass underneath.  It was a sign that the animal was prairie-bred.  On the plains near the border grass cures as it stands, retaining its nutriment as hay.  The native pony pushes the snow aside with its forefoot and finds its feed.  But in the timber country of the North grass grows long and coarse.  When its sap dries out, it rots.

The officer was thinking that he had better put both horse and cariole up for the winter.  It was time now for dogs and sled.  Even in summer this was not a country for horses.  There were so many lakes that a birch-bark canoe covered the miles faster.

Darkness was sweeping down over the land, and with it the first flakes of a coming storm.  Beresford had expected this, for earlier in the day he had seen two bright mock suns in the sky.  The Indians had told him that these sun dogs were warnings of severe cold and probably a blizzard.

Out of the edge of the forest a man on snowshoes came.  He was moving fast.  Beresford, watching him idly, noticed that he toed in.  Therefore he was probably a Cree trapper.  But the Crees were usually indolent travelers.  They did not cover ground as this man was doing.

The man was an Indian.  The soldier presently certified his first guess as to that.  But not until the native was almost at the store did he recognize him as Onistah.

The Blackfoot wasted no time in leading up to what he had to say.  “Sleeping Dawn she prisoner of Bully West and Whaley.  She say bring her father.  She tell me bring him quick”