“Gone!” Dick and Ed both spoke together.  “An’ where now?”

“Gone!  His an’ mine!  ‘Twere here when we leaves th’ tilt, an’ ’tis gone now!”

The three had risen to their feet and stood looking at each other for awhile in silence.  Finally Dick spoke: 

“‘Tis what I was fearin’.  ‘Tis some o’ Micmac John’s work.  Now where be Bob?  Somethin’s been happenin’ t’ th’ lad.  Micmac John’s been doin’ somethin’ wi’ un, an’ we must find un.”

“We must find un an’ run that devil Injun down,” exclaimed Ed, reaching for his adikey.  “We mustn’t be losin’ time about un, neither.”

“‘Twill be no use goin’ now,” said Dick, with better judgment.  “Th’ moon’s down an’ we’d be missin’ th’ trail in th’ dark, but wi’ daylight we must be goin’.”

Ed hung his adikey up again.  “I were forgettin’ th’ moon were down.  We’ll have t’ bide here for daylight,” he assented.  Then he gritted his teeth.  “That Injun’ll have t’ suffer for un if he’s done foul wi’ Bob.”

The remainder of the evening was spent in putting forth conjectures as to what had possibly befallen Bob.  They were much concerned but tried to reassure themselves with the thought that he might have been delayed one tilt back for the night, and that Micmac John had done nothing worse than steal the fur.  Nevertheless their evening was spoiled—­the evening they had looked forward to with so much pleasure and their minds were filled with anxious thoughts when finally they rolled into their blankets for the night.

Christmas morning came with a dead, searching cold that made the three men shiver as they stepped out of the warm tilt long before dawn and strode off in single file into the silent, dark forest.  After a while daylight came, and then the sun, beautiful but cheerless, appeared above the eastern hills to reveal the white splendour of the world and make the frost-hung fir trees and bushes scintillate and sparkle like a gem-hung fairy-land.  But the three men saw none of this.  Before them lay a black, unknown horror that they dreaded, yet hurried on to meet.  The air breathed a mystery that they could not fathom.  Their hearts were weighted with a nameless dread.

Their pace never once slackened and not a word was spoken until after several hours the first tilt came suddenly into view, when Dick said laconically: 

“No smoke.  He’s not here.”

“An’ no signs o’ his bein’ on th’ trail since th’ storm,” added Ed.

“No footin’ t’ mark un at all,” assented Dick.  “What’s happened has happened before th’ last snow.”

“Aye, before th’ last snow.  ‘Twas before th’ storm it happened.”

Here they took a brief half hour to rest and boil the kettle, and the remainder of that day and all the next day kept up their tireless, silent march.  Not a track in the unbroken white was there to give them a ray of hope, and every step they took made more certain the tragedy they dreaded.