Page:The trail of the golden horn.djvu/190



HE sun of the short winter day was sinking below the distant mountain peaks away to the west. It touched with its departing rays three forms moving slowly across a vast desolate waste of snow. Hugo, the trapper, and Tom Rolfe, the constable, were in harness, drawing the toboggan on which Marion was seated. The men were on snow-shoes, with Hugo ahead, with ropes across their shoulders. They were part way over the burnt region where the sergeant had been overcome by the storm when the sun went down. Ahead in the distance where the trees stood thick and sombre, they planned to rest for the night. Here they hoped to find the sergeant, and Marion’s heart beat fast at the thought of meeting him again.

It was dark by the time they reached the edge of the forest, and a few rods among the trees they found the sergeant standing before a cheerful fire. His face brightened with joy as he saw them, and in another minute he had Marion clasped in his arms. Hugo and Rolfe pretended not to notice the meeting of the lovers, but busied themselves about the fire.

Strange thoughts were beating through the trapper’s mind for all his apparent unconcern. How he longed for Marion to greet him in such an affectionate manner as she did the sergeant. He was her father, while the other she had known but a short time. A sudden im-