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.

"He's going east--and we ought to go north to find the cabin," he
told her, pointing to the trail. "But we'll follow him. I want his
rifle. I want it more than anything else in this world, now that
I've got you. We'll follow--"

If there had been a shadow of hesitation in his mind it was ended
in that moment. From behind them there came a strange hooting cry.
It was not a yell such as they had heard before. It was a booming
far-reaching note that had in it the intonation of a drum--a sound
that made one shiver because of its very strangeness. And then,
from farther west, it came--

"Hoom--Hoom--Ho-o-o-o-o-m-m-m-m--"

In the next half minute it seemed to Philip that the cry was