One day a flock of prairie chickens flew high overhead toward the thick Spruce woods. Others followed and it seemed to be a general move. Chaska looked toward them and said, "Chickens go hide in bush. Blizzard to-night." It surely came, and the hunters stayed all day by the fire. Next day it was as fierce as ever. On the third day it ceased somewhat and they hunted again. But Chaska returned with his gun broken by a fall, and after a long silent smoke he said: "Yan hunt in Moose Mountain?" "No!" "Good hunting. Go?" Yan shook his head. Presently the Indian, glancing to east, said, "Sioux tracks there to-day. All bad medicine here." And Yan knew that his mind was made up. He went away and they never met again. Like everything Indian, he is gone, his family is gone, his hunting grounds are gone, and to-day all that is left of him is his name, borne by the lonely lake that lies in the Carberry Hills. VI "There are more deer round Carberry now than ever before, and the Big Stag has been seen between Kennedy's Plain and the mill." So said a note that reached Yan away in the east where he had been chafing in a new and distasteful life. It was the beginning of the hunting season, the fret was already in his blood, and that letter decided him. For awhile the iron horse, for awhile the gentle horse, then he donned his moosehide wings and flew as of old on many a long hard flight to return as so often before. Then he heard that at a certain lake far to the eastward seven deer had been seen; their leader a wonderful buck. With three others he set out in a sleigh to the eastward lake and soon found the tracks. Six of various sizes and one large one, undoubtedly that of the famous Stag. How utterly the veneer was torn to tatters by those seven chains of tracks. How completely the wild paleolithic beast stood revealed in each of the men, in spite of semi-modern garb, as they drove away on the trail with a wild excited gleam in every eye. [Illustration] It was nearly night before the trail warmed up, but even then, in spite of Yan's earnest protest, they drove on in the sleigh. And soon they came to where the trail told of seven keen observers looking backward from a hill, then an even sevenfold chain of twenty-five foot bounds. The hunters got no glimpse at all, but followed till the night came down, then hastily camped in the snow. [Illustration: To scan the white world for his foe.—Page 203.] In the morning they followed as before, and soon came to where seven spots of black, bare ground showed where the deer had slept. Now when the trail grew warm Yan insisted on hunting on foot. He trailed the deer into a great thicket and knew just where they were by a grouse that flew cackling from its farther side. [Illustration]