For an hour the two men stumbled on, staggering, limping, slowly reaching the limit of mortal endurance. Then it was the Indian, whose fountain of strength was more severely drained, who gave way. Le Talon leaned on his musket and uttered a low groan. “The eyes of Le Talon are dim,” he said faintly. “Send up a yell,” gasped Crawford. The chief lifted his head, drew a deep breath, sent a cry quavering toward the starry splendours above. Crawford, leaning weakly against a tree, suddenly started erect; to that cry came an answer, a response in a voice that he knew. A hoarse shout broke from him. “Frontin! _Au secours!_” “Ay, cap’n,” came the faint reply. Thus heartened, the Mohegan got out his firebag, got a spark in his tinder, got a tiny blaze running into the heart of a dead birch. In five minutes the fire was being hastily stamped out again, and Frontin was rushing up to them in the darkness, with him a dozen eager young Dacotah warriors--comprising both his own party and that of Le Talon. Frontin was bursting with news, and poured it out hurriedly in the darkness. “We found the Star Woman, cap’n!” he exclaimed. “That’s Le Talon with you, eh? We ran onto his camp and were waiting to get his report on the fire-glow in the sky. That rogue Maclish has a cursed big force of men--we caught one of the Assiniboines and made him talk. Eighty or ninety warriors all told. We can’t break through to reach Perrot.” “He’s safe enough behind them,” said Crawford. “Death of my life! What’s the matter with your voice, cap’n? You croak like an old raven. And there’s a most devilish queer odour around here, like burned meat----” Crawford broke into a laugh. “Burned meat! For once you spoke a true word----” Frontin caught him as he fell, still laughing, and passed into unconsciousness. CHAPTER VI SOME PROBLEMS ARE BEST LEFT UNSOLVED A dream came to Crawford. It seemed that he lay beneath a huge pine, wind-twisted and curiously crooked, at the very brink of a dizzy cliff. Below and before him was outspread a magnificent panorama; a blue lake, blue as the sky, still and deep and very clear, and out beyond this mile after mile of green forest running up to the horizon, until green merged imperceptibly with blue. As he lay here, it seemed that Phelim Burke came and stood before him. This was not the scarred and broken man he had last seen, but the laughing, gallant gentleman of earlier days, sword at side and joy of life sparkling in the gay eyes of him. Phelim stood there and smiled, took a pinch of snuff, chuckled at Crawford’s astonished ejaculation. “Faith, lad, did I not say I’d stay with ye? So here ye are, Hal, and here am I.” “Where?” asked Crawford in his dream. “The end of our trail together, lad. Ye may deny the world, but escape it ye cannot. What’s over the horizon for all men, Hal?” “Death,” said Crawford.