Page:The trail of the golden horn.djvu/13



O Smoke!”

Hugo, the trapper, rasped forth these words upon the stinging air as he paused abruptly upon the brow of a steep hill. He was puzzled, and he rubbed the frost from his eyelids with his mittened right hand. Perhaps he had not seen aright. But no, he had not been mistaken. There, close to the river, stood the little cabin, nestling amidst a grove of young firs and jack-pines. But no smoke poured from the pipe stuck up through the roof.

“Strange! strange!” Hugo muttered. “There should be smoke. Bill Haines hasn’t moved overnight, that’s certain. Something must be wrong.”

His eyes swept the landscape to right and left. Everywhere stretched the vast wilderness of glistening snow, dark forests, and towering mountains. That long white streak, winding like a serpent, was the river, now frozen from bank to bank. From a few open places where the current was exceptionally swift vapour rose like dense clouds of smoke. Near one of these stood the cabin, for running water was a luxury