Then Child-of-Light told him how on the previous morning Douglas and his daughter had reached the ranche.  But as Poundmaker’s men were hovering in great strength in the neighbourhood, he, Child-of-Light, had deemed it advisable that they should take fresh horses and proceed in an easterly direction towards Fort Pitt, and then in a northerly, until they came to that secluded valley of which he had previously told them.  They had done this, and gone on with hardly a pause.

In the meantime Child-of-Light had sent some of his braves to run off the rancher’s herd of horses to a remote part of the country, where they would be safe from the enemy, while he and one or two others remained behind to cover his retreat.  But alarming news had just been brought him by a runner.  Big Bear had perpetrated a terrible massacre at Frog Lake, near Fort Pitt.  Ten persons had been shot in the church, and two brave priests, Fathers Farfand and Marchand, had been beaten to death.  If Douglas and the others kept on they must run right into their hands.  It was to catch them up, if possible, and fetch them back before they crossed the Saskatchewan, that Child-of-Light was on his way now.  Better to fall into the hands of Poundmaker and his braves, who probably now realised that they had gone too far, than into those of Big Bear, who was a fiend.  Of course, he, Pasmore, would come with them.

“But are there no fresh horses for us, Child-of-Light?” asked Pasmore.  “If the others have got a good start and fresh horses, can we catch them up?”

“I have said I have sent all the horses of Douglas away for safe keeping.  We must overtake them with what we have.  The Great Spirit is good, and may do much for us.”

“Then let us push on, Child-of-Light, for it will be a grievous thing if evil befall our friends now.”

For three days they travelled in a north-easterly direction, but the sun had gained power, and spring had come with a rush, as it does in that part of the world.  The first chinook wind that came from the west, through the passes of the Rockies from warm southern seas, would render travelling impossible—­their sleighs would be useless.  The great danger was that Douglas and the others would have passed over the Saskatchewan, and the ice breaking up behind them would have cut off their retreat.

In those three days the party was tortured with alternative hopes and fears.  Now it was a horse breaking through the softening crust of snow and coming down, and then it would be one playing out altogether.  If in another day those in front were not overtaken, it was pretty certain they must run into Big Bear’s band, and that would mean wholesale massacre.  In order to catch them up they walked most of the night, leading their horses along the trail.  On the fourth day they sighted the broad Saskatchewan, now with many blue trickling streams of water upon its surface and cracking ominously.  They scanned the opposite shore in the neighbourhood of the trail anxiously.