The Danger Trail | Page 7

fall of
moccasined feet a dozen yards away. Neither saw the gleaming eyes
and the thin, dark face of Jean Croisset, the half-breed, as they walked
swiftly in the direction of the Saskatchewan.
CHAPTER III
THE MYSTERIOUS ATTACK
Howland was glad that for a time there was an excuse for his silence. It
began to dawn on him that this was an extraordinary adventure for a
man on whose shoulders rested the responsibilities of one of the
greatest engineering tasks on the continent, and who was due to take a
train for the seat of his operations at eight o'clock in the morning.
Inwardly he was experiencing some strange emotions; outwardly he
smiled as he thought of what Van Horn would say if he knew the
circumstances. He looked down at his companion; saw the sheen of her
hair as it rippled out from under her fur turban, studied the soft contour
of her cheek and chin, without himself being observed, and noticed,
incidentally, that the top of the bewitching head beside him came just
about to a level with his cigar which he was smoking. He wondered if
he were making a fool of himself. If so, he assured himself that there
was at least one compensation. This night in Prince Albert would not
be so uninteresting as it had promised to be earlier in the evening.
Where the river ferry was half drawn up on the shore, its stern frozen in

the ice, he paused and looked down at the girl in quiet surprise. She
nodded, smiling, and motioned across the river.
"I was over there once to-night," said Howland aloud. "Didn't see any
houses and heard nothing but wolves. Is that where we're going?"
Her white teeth gleamed at him and he was conscious of a warm
pressure against his arm as the girl signified that they were to cross. His
perplexity increased. On the farther shore the forest came down to the
river's edge in a black wall of spruce and balsam. Beyond that edge of
the wilderness he knew that no part of Prince Albert intruded. It was
possible that across from them was a squatter's cabin; and yet if this
were so, and the girl was going to it, why had she told him that she was
a stranger in the town? And why had she come to him for the assistance
she promised to request of him instead of seeking it of those whom she
knew?
He asked himself these questions without putting them in words, and
not until they were climbing up the frozen bank of the stream, with the
shadows of the forest growing deeper about them, did he speak again.
"You told me you were a stranger," he said, stopping his companion
where the light of the stars fell on the face which she turned up to him.
She smiled, and nodded affirmatively.
"You seem pretty well acquainted over here," he persisted. "Where are
we going?"
This time she responded with an emphatic negative shake of her head,
at the same time pointing with her free hand to the well-defined trail
that wound up from the ferry landing into the forest. Earlier in the day
Howland had been told that this was the Great North Trail that led into
the vast wildernesses beyond the Saskatchewan. Two days before, the
factor from Lac Bain, the Chippewayan and the Crees had come in over
it. Its hard crust bore the marks of the sledges of Jean Croisset and the
men from the Lac la Ronge country. Since the big snow, which had
fallen four feet deep ten days before, a forest man had now and then
used this trail on his way down to the edge of civilization; but none

from Prince Albert had traveled it in the other direction. Howland had
been told this at the hotel, and he shrugged his shoulders in candid
bewilderment as he stared down into the girl's face. She seemed to
understand his thoughts, and again her mouth rounded itself into that
bewitching red O, which gave to her face an expression of tender
entreaty, of pathetic grief that the soft lips were powerless to voice, the
words which she wished to speak. Then, suddenly, she darted a few
steps from Howland and with the toe of her shoe formed a single word
in the surface of the snow. She rested her hand lightly on Howland's
shoulder as he bent over to make it out in the elusive starlight.
"Camp!" he cried, straightening himself. "Do you mean to say you're
camping out here?"
She nodded again and again, delighted that he understood her. There
was something so childishly sweet in her face, in the gladness of her
eyes, that Howland stretched out both his hands to her, laughing