For a moment a spectator would have eyed Lounsbury with apprehension; to all appearances he had swollen past the danger mark and was about to explode. "You'd hold me up, would you--you--you--I'd like to see you get it." Bill eyed him long and grimly. There was a miniature flake of fire in each of his dark eyes and a curious little quiver, vaguely ominous, in his muscles. There was also a grim determination in the set of his features. "I'd get it all right," he assured him. Then his voice changed, friendly and soft again. "But you'd better talk it over with Miss Tremont, Mr. Lounsbury. The snow is likely only temporary. I'll see that you turn back before it gets too deep for safety." They folded the tent and packed the horses, and shortly after eight Bill led the way deeper into the forest. The snow-swept trees, the white glades between, the long line of pack horses following in the wake of the impassive form of Bill made a picture that Virginia could never forget. And ever the snow sifted down upon them, ever heavier on the branches, ever deeper on the trail. If the record of the wild things had been clear in yesterday's mud it was an open book to-day. Everywhere the trail was criss-crossed with tracks. In that first mile she saw signs of almost every kind of living creature that dwelt in this northern realm. Besides those of the larger mammals, such as bear and moose and caribou, she saw the tracks of those two savage hunters, the wolverine and lynx. The latter is nothing more nor less than an overgrown tomcat, except for a decorative tuft at his ears, and like all his brethren soft as flower petals in his step; but because he mews unpleasantly on the trail he has a worse reputation than he deserves. But not so with the wolverine. Many unkind remarks have been addressed to him, but no words have ever been invented--even the marvelous combinations of expletives known to the trapper--properly to describe him. The little people of the forest--the birds in the shrubbery and the squirrels in the trees and the little digging rodents in the ground--fear him and hate him for his stealth and his cunning. Even the cow caribou, remembering his way of leaping suddenly from ambush upon her calf, dreads him for his ferocity and his strength; and the trapper, finding his bait stolen from every trap on his line, calls down curses upon his head. But for all this unpopularity he continues to prosper and increase. Virginia saw where a marten and a squirrel had come to death grips in the snow: the tracks and an ominous red stain told the story plainly. The squirrel had attempted to seek safety in flight, but the marten was even swifter in the tree limbs than the squirrel himself. The little animal had made a flying leap to the ground,--a small part of a second too late. The marten, Bill explained, were no longer numerous. Fur buyers all over the world were paying many times their weight in gold for the glossy skins.