Scarcely breathing, Billy advanced, his heart choked more and more by the fear that gripped him. The door to the cabin was not barred. He opened it. There was nothing inside. The old stove was broken. The bare cots had not been used for months-- perhaps for two years. As he took another step an ermine scampered away ahead of him. He heard the mouselike squeal of its young a moment later under the sapling floor. He went back to the door and stood in the open. "My God!" he moaned. He looked in the direction of Couchée's cabin, where Isobel had died. Was there a chance there, he wondered? There was little hope, but he started quickly over the old trail. The gloom of evening fell swiftly about him. It was almost dark when he reached the other clearing. And again his voice broke in a groaning cry. There was no cabin here. McTabb had burned it after the passing of the plague. Where it had stood was now a black and charred mass, already partly covered by the verdure of the wilderness. Billy gripped his hands hard and walked back from it searchingly. A few steps away he found what McTabb had told him that he would find, a mound and a sapling cross. And then, in spite of all the fighting strength that was in him, he flung himself down upon Isobel's grave, and a great, broken cry of grief burst from his lips. When he raised his head a long time afterward the stars were shimmering in the sky. It was a wonderfully still night, and all that he could hear was the ripple and song of the spring floods in the Little Beaver. He rose silently to his feet and stood for a few moments as motionless as a statue over the grave. Then he turned and went back over the old trail, and from the edge of the clearing he looked back and whispered to himself and to her: "I'll come back for you, Isobel. I'll come back." At McTabb's cabin he had left his pack. He put the straps over his shoulder and started south again. There was but one move for him to make now. McTabb was known at Le Pas. He got his supplies and sold his furs there. Some one at Le Pas would know where he had gone with little Isobel. Not until he was several miles distant from the scene of death and his own broken hopes did he spread out his blanket and lie down for the night. He was up and had breakfast at dawn. On the fourth day he came to the little wilderness outpost-- the end of rail-- on the Saskatchewan. Within an hour he discovered that Rookie McTabb had not been to Le Pas for nearly two years. No one had seen him with a child. That same night a construction train was leaving for Etomami, down on the main line, and Billy lost no time in making up his mind what he would do. He would go to Montreal. If little Isobel was not there she was still somewhere in the wilderness with McTabb. Then he would return, and he would find her if it took him a lifetime.