"Sam, is it you?" called out James Morris presently.

"Yes!" was the feeble answer.

"Where are you?"

"Here, by the old split hickory. Jest about lost my wind, too."

"We'll soon be with you," answered James Morris.

There was a row of brushwood to the south of the split hickory tree, and in
the shelter of this the Morrises moved forward as rapidly as possible. The
keen wind cut like a knife, and they knew that it was this which had
exhausted the old frontiersman they were trying to succor.

Almost blinded, and nearly out of wind themselves, they at last reached the
split tree, to find Sam Barringford crouched behind a mass of the
snow-laden branches. He had a large pack on his back and also a bundle in
his arms.

Sam Barringford was a backwoodsman of a type that has long since vanished
from our midst. He was between fifty and sixty years of age, tall, thin,
and as straight as an arrow. He wore his hair and his beard long, and his
heavy eyebrows sheltered a pair of small black eyes that were as
penetrating as those of any wild beast. He was a skilled marksman, and at
following a trail had an instinct almost equal to that of the red men with
whom he had so often come in contact. He was dressed in a long hunting
shirt and furs, and wore a coonskin cap, with the tail of the animal
hanging over his shoulder.