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244 him, and he determined that he would never return to Hart River with his friends' deaths unavenged.

His attention suddenly became riveted upon the cabin. The door opened and a man, closely followed by three others, stepped out upon the snow. Connie saw that they all carried rifles and his mittened hands tightened unconsciously upon his carbine. For what seemed an interminable period the four talked, gesticulated, and pointed, and then having apparently reached an agreement, each started in a different direction. The boy noted with a sudden thrill that they carried no packs. They had left the supplies in the cabin! Evidently then, this was a hunting expedition, or possibly they meant to lay out a trap line. The boy's brain worked rapidly as the distance widened between the four men. One was approaching directly toward him, and, wriggling back from the edge of the timber, but still keeping the man in sight, he took his position close beside the trail, screened from it by a thick growth of scrub. The dogs were upon the outer edge of the patch some two hundred yards in the rear and the boy hoped fervently that they would not get wind of the stranger until he entered the thicket. Every little