"These marks were about eight inches in length, and, as I looked at them, I felt a shiver run through me and I thought of a monstrous bird and even of a reptilian horror. But that squatting form we had seen for those few fleeting moments--well, _that_ had not been either a bird or a reptile. "'One thing,' said Long, 'is plain: _it_ was leading and the angel was following.' "White and I looked closely, and we saw that this had certainly been so. "'It appears,' Long remarked, 'that the fog didn't interfere any with their journey. They seem to have gone along as steadily and surely as if they had been in bright sunshine.' "'I wonder,' White said, 'if the thing was smelling the way back like a dog.' "'Back where?' I asked. 'And I see no sign of a down trail.' "'Lord,' exclaimed Long, looking about uneasily, 'the Siwashes say that queer things go on up here, that the mountain is haunted; and, blame me, if I ain't beginning to think that they are right! Maybe, before we are done, we'll wish that we had turned back with old Sklokoyum.' "I didn't like to hear him talk like that. He spoke as though he were jesting, but I knew that superstitious dread had laid a hand upon him. "'Nonsense!' I laughed. 'Haunted? That woman that we saw and that thing--well, we know that they were real enough, and we knew that even when we didn't have these footprints to tell us.' "'Oh, they are real, all right,' said Long. 'But real _what_?' "A little while after that, we came to a snowfield, an acre or two in extent, and there we made a strange discovery. The trail led right across it. And it was plain that _it_ had still been leading and the angel had been following. Of a sudden White, who was in advance, exclaimed and pointed. "'Look at that,' he said. 'See that? Its tracks end here.' "And that is just what they did! But the tracks of the angel went right on across the snow. "'Where did the thing go to?' I wondered. "'Perhaps,' suggested Long, 'she picked it up and carried it.' "But I shook my head. "'A woman--or a man either, for the matter of that--carrying that thing!' White exclaimed. 'She could never have done that. And you can see for yourself; she never even paused here. Had she stopped to pick the thing up--what a queer thought--we would have the story written here in the snow.' "'Then,' said Long, 'it must have gone on through the air.' "'Humph!' White ejaculated. 'Through the air! Well, Sklokoyum said that the thing has wings--the bat wings of the white man's devil!' "'But,' I objected, 'Sklokoyum was so badly scared that he didn't know what he saw.' "'I wonder,' said White.