"A wounded bird flew over here," he said. "Some one shot a bird; that's all."
"I didn't hear a shot."
"It might have been miles away."
"I didn't see any bird."
"We haven't been looking up. People may be hunting through these woods, we know."
"Yes," she said, trying to get herself together better. She saw him sweep with his ski and brush another spot, avoiding stepping over it as he went on. It probably was accident, she thought; but she followed in his trail rather than cross the line elsewhere.
They entered woods again and soon heard a whip cracking and the voice of a man calling to straining horses.
"Gee-up; hoah, now; gee-up, you Sally!"
"That's Sam Green Sky," Ethel informed; and they came upon a white and roan team,—strong, large mares pulling a wide-runnered wood sled through snow that reached to their hocks.
"B'jou, Miss Ethel!" Sam hailed and waved his arm, while he set about turning his team back into the tracks they had just cleared.
He was a younger man than Redbird, not more than thirty and fat and swarthy, of the type suggesting a mixture of negro blood; he had thick lips which laughed easily, jolly looking eyes, and he was talkative by nature and dressed in the loudest and gaudiest of mackinaw patterns. But if he had other than Indian blood, the mixture was with a strain which left without kink his gleaming, bluish-black hair.
He was chewing tobacco which he spat out, courteously, before speaking to Ethel and acknowledging his introduction to Loutrelle. He did not offer to shake
