140 



Hails ffiat Cross 

 InffleSnoir 



faint trace was left of the long raquettes was 

 caught up by the gale and whirled away with 

 a howl of exultation. Before them as they 

 ran every trail of wolf and caribou and snow- 

 shoe, and every distant landmark, had van- 

 ished ; the world was but a chaos of mad roll- 

 ing snow clouds; and behind them — Their 

 stout little hearts trembled as they saw not 

 a vestige of the trail they had just made. 

 With the great world itself, their own little 

 tracks, as fast as they made them, were swept 

 and blotted out of existence. Like two spar- 

 rows that had dropped blinded and bewil- 

 dered on the vast plain out of the snow 

 cloud, they huddled together without one 

 friendly sign to tell them whence they had 

 come or whither they were going. Worst 

 of all the instinct of direction, which often 

 guides an Indian through the still fog or 

 the darkest night, seemed benumbed by the 

 cold and the tumult ; and not even Old 

 Tomah himself could have told north or 

 south in the blinding storm. 



Still they ran on bravely, bending to the 

 J fierce blasts, heading the wind as best they 





