Whenever Dane thought of his mother, Jean Sterling always came into his
mind. This was but natural, as they were the only two women he had
ever loved. One could never come back to him, but the other was
somewhere in the country, and he must find her. He longed for Pete
that he might send him in search of Sam. He thought much about what
the dying slasher had told him, and he was firmly convinced that the
girl was with the loyal Indian.

The travelling was becoming heavier now, and the storm increasing in
violence. But still he pressed on, up hill and down, over wind-swept
lakes, and bleak stretches of wild meadows. But for the importance of
his mission he would have sought the shelter of a friendly clump of
bushes, and camped for the night. He had often done so in the past,
for he could sleep as comfortably curled up in a nest of fir boughs
with the snow weaving its mystic web over him as on a soft bed. But
not to-night could he afford to tarry. Too much was at stake, so he
must hasten on, no matter how fierce the storm or how hard the trail.

His attention was at length arrested by recently-made marks in the
snow. He was woodsman enough to understand that some one was
travelling that way, evidently under considerable difficulty. Several
times he stopped to examine where the wayfarer had floundered about in
the snow in desperate efforts to regain the trail. He wondered who it
could be, so he hurried forward hoping to overtake the struggling man,
for the thought of a woman never once entered his mind.

He had gone but half a mile when he came to a place where the traveller
had left the trail and gone off to the right. He stood debating with
himself whether to follow or not, when the sound of a human voice
mingled with the roaring of the wind. What was said he could not