Nevertheless, a sudden chill fell
upon them both. They stopped abruptly, shivering a bit, drawing closer
together and scanning the waste keenly to know what it all meant.
"_Mitcheegeesookh_, the storm!" said Noel sharply; and without another
word they turned and hurried back on their own trail. In a short half
hour the world would be swallowed up in chaos. To be caught out on the
barrens meant to be lost; and to be lost here without fire and shelter
meant death, swift and sure. So they ran on, hoping to strike the woods
before the blizzard burst upon them.
They were scarcely half-way to shelter when the white flakes began to
whirl around them. With startling, terrible swiftness the familiar world
vanished; the guiding trail was blotted out, and nothing but a wolf's
instinct could have held a straight course in the blinding fury of the
storm. Still they held on bravely, trying in vain to keep their
direction by the eddying winds, till Mooka stumbled twice at the same
hollow over a hidden brook, and they knew they were running blindly in a
circle of death. Frightened at the discovery they turned, as the caribou
do, keeping their backs steadily to the winds, and drifted slowly away
down the long barren.
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