For a matter of a quarter of an hour they traveled as swiftly as Celie could walk.  Philip was confident that the Eskimo whose cries they had heard would strike directly for the point whence the first cry had come, and it was his purpose to cover as much distance as possible in the first few minutes that their enemies might be behind them.  It was easier to watch the back trail than to guard against ambuscades ahead.  Twice in that time he stopped where they would be unseen and looked back, and in advancing he picked out the thinnest timber and evaded whatever might have afforded a hiding place to a javelin-thrower.  They had progressed another half mile when suddenly they came upon a snowshoe trail in the snow.

It had crossed at right angles to their own course, and as Philip bent over it a sudden lump rose into his throat.  The other Eskimos had not worn snowshoes.  That in itself had not surprised him, for the snow was hard and easily traveled in moccasins.  The fact that amazed him now was that the trail under his eyes had not been made by Eskimo usamuks.  The tracks were long and narrow.  The web imprint in the snow was not that of the broad narwhal strip, but the finer mesh of babiche.  It was possible that an Eskimo was wearing them, but they were A white man’s shoes!

And then he made another discovery.  For a dozen paces he followed in the trail, allowing six inches with each step he took as the snowshoe handicap.  Even at that he could not easily cover the tracks.  The man who had made them had taken a longer snowshoe stride than his own by at least nine inches.  He could no longer keep the excitement of his discovery from Celie.

“The Eskimo never lived who could make that track,” he exclaimed.  “They can travel fast enough but they’re a bunch of runts when it comes to leg-swing.  It’s a white man—­or Bram!”

The announcement of the wolf-man’s name and Philip’s gesture toward the trail drew a quick little cry of understanding from Celie.  In a flash she had darted to the snowshoe tracks and was examining them with eager intensity.  Then she looked up and shook her head.  It wasn’t Bram!  She pointed to the tail of the shoe and catching up a twig broke it under Philip’s eyes.  He remembered now.  The end of Bram’s shoes was snubbed short off.  There was no evidence of that defect in the snow.  It was not Bram who had passed that way.

For a space he stood undecided.  He knew that Celie was watching him—­that she was trying to learn something of the tremendous significance of that moment from his face.  The same unseen force that had compelled him to wait and watch for his foes a short time before seemed urging him now to follow the strange snowshoe trail.  Enemy or friend the maker of those tracks would at least be armed.  The thought of what a rifle and a few cartridges would mean to him and Celie now brought a low cry of decision from him.  He turned quickly to Celie.