The snow was ankle-deep when he again took the trail and lowered his head to the sting of the wind-driven particles. On and on he plodded, lifting his feet higher as the snow deepened. As yet, in his ignorance of woodcraft, no thought of danger entered his mind. "It is harder work, that is all," he thought; but, had he known it, his was a situation that no woodsman wise in the ways of the winter trails would have cared to face. During the morning he had covered but fifteen of the forty miles which lay between the old shack and Moncrossen's camp. Each minute added to the difficulties of the journey, which, in the words of Daddy Dunnigan was "a fine two walks for a good man," and, with the added hardship of a heavy snowfall, would have been a man's-sized job for the best of them equipped, as they would have been, with good grub and snowshoes. Bill was forced to rest frequently. Not only were his softened muscles feeling the strain--it was getting his wind, this steady bucking the snow--but each time he again faced the storm and plowed doggedly northward. Darkness found him struggling knee-deep in the cold whiteness, and, as he paused to rest in the shelter of a pile of tops left by the axe-men, the foremost of the gray shadows that for the last two hours had dogged his footsteps, phantom-like, resolved itself into a very tangible pair of wicked eyes which smoldered in greenish points of hate above a very sharp, fang-studded muzzle, from which a long, red tongue licked suggestively at back-curled lips. CHAPTER XIV AT BAY Bill Carmody was no coward; but neither was he a fool, and for the first time the seriousness of his position dawned upon him. Other shapes appeared and ranged themselves beside their leader, and as the man looked upon their gaunt, sinewy leanness, the slavering jaws, and blazing eyes, he shuddered. Here, indeed, was a very real danger. He decided to camp. Fire, he remembered to have read, would hold the brutes at bay. Wood there was in plenty, and, quickly clearing a space in the snow, he soon had the satisfaction of seeing tiny tongues of flame crackle in a pile of dry branches. He unslung his light axe and attacked the limbs of a dead pine that lay at the edge of the road. After an hour's work his cleared space was flanked on either side by piles of dry firewood, and at his back the great pile of tops afforded shelter from the wind which swept down the roadway, driving before it stinging volleys of snow. He spread his blanket and drew from his pack the unappetizing food. He warmed the remaining half-can of salmon and whittled at his nubbin of bread. "Dinner is served, sir," he announced to himself, "dead fish with formaldehyde dressing, petrified dough, and _aqua nivis_." The storm continued, and as he smoked the gravity of his plight forced itself upon him.