“Well,” Will explained to the half-breed after a moment’s deliberation, “I suppose you’ll turn in now and help me find the boys!”

Pierre nodded and pointed toward the campfire.

“Build him big!” he said.  “Boys come cold.”

Accepting the hint, Will piled great logs on the fire while the half-breed looked sullenly on.  The boy then dressed himself in his warmest clothing and the two set out together.

“Have you any idea which way to go?” asked the boy.

Pierre pointed away to the south.

“Wind blow that way,” he said.  “They follow the wind.”

Numerous times, as the two tramped through the snow together, Will caught the half-breed looking in his direction with eyes of hate.

After proceeding some distance, he fell in behind Pierre, and so the two traveled through the wilderness, each suspicious and watchful of the other.  After walking an hour or more they came to a place where Tommy and Sandy had built their fire on the previous night.

There the half-breed read the story written upon the snow like a book.  Pointing here and there, he explained to Will that two boys had been caught in the storm and had built a fire.  He showed, too, that a third boy had come plunging through the snow, nearly circled the camp, and came back toward the fire from the north.  Then he showed the tracks of three heading off to the south.

“Do you think one of those boys was your companion?” asked Will.

The half-breed answered that he was sure of it.

“Then that leaves one of the boys still unaccounted for,” Will mused.  “It looks to me,” he went on, “as if your friend and George started away together and got lost.  Then your boy came back and found Tommy and Sandy and started away with them toward the place where he had left George.  Is that the way you look at it?”

The half-breed grunted some sullen reply, and the two walked on together following the trail which led toward the range of hills.

Instead of directly following the trail left by the boys, however, Pierre turned frequently to left and right, explaining that if enemies were about it was a trail which would be watched.

They came to the cavern at last, and stood by the dying embers of the fire.  There was no one in sight.  Will examined the sloping surface of snow in front and found no tracks leading outward.

“They must be in here somewhere!” he exclaimed.

Pierre nodded his fur cap vigorously, and the two began a careful examination of the underground place.

They found many little caves opening from the larger one, but no trace of the boys.  After a time a shout from Pierre drew Will to his side.  The fellow was peering into a crevice, in the rocky wall which seemed to lead for some distance under the hill.

“Do you think they are hidden in there?” asked the boy.

Pierre explained in his barely understandable dialect that he thought the boys might have escaped into the inner cavern and started to make their way out in another direction.