Without giving a thought to his action, Rod began his descent of the ridge in the trail made by the bear, at the same time keeping his eyes fixed upon the sledge track and the distant forest.  At the foot of the ridge the great trunk of a fallen tree lay in his path, and as he went to climb over it he stopped, a cry of amazement stifling itself in his throat.  Over that tree the bear had scrambled, and upon it, close to the spot where the animal had brushed off the snow in his passage, was the imprint of a human hand!

For a full minute Rod stood as motionless as if he had been paralyzed, scarcely breathing in his excitement.  The four fingers and thumb of the hand had left their impressions with startling clearness.  The fingers were long and delicately slender, the palm narrow.  The imprint had assuredly not been made by the hand of a man!

Recovering himself, Rod looked about him.  There were no marks in the snow except those of the bear.  Was it possible that he was mistaken?  He scrutinized the mysterious handprint again.  As he gazed an uncanny chill crept through him, and when he raised his head he knew that he was trembling in spite of his efforts to control himself.  Turning about he swiftly followed the trail to the top of the ridge, recrossed the sledge track, and descended again into the wildness of the gorge on the other side.  He had not progressed twenty rods when without a sound he dropped behind a rock.  He had seen no movement ahead of him.  He had heard nothing.  Yet in that moment he was thrilled as never before in his life.

For the bear trail had ceased.

And ahead of him, instead of the tracks of a beast, there continued the footprints of a man!

CHAPTER V

ROD’S FIGHT FOR LIFE

It was some time before Roderick moved from his concealment behind the rock.  It was not fear that held him there, but a knowledge within him that he needed to think, to collect his senses as he would have expressed it if Wabi had been with him.  For a brief spell he was stunned by the succession of surprises which he had encountered, and he felt that now, if ever in his life, he needed control of himself.  He did not attempt to solve the mystery of the trail beyond the fact that it was not made by a bear and that the handprint on the log was not made by a man.  But he was certain of one thing.  In some way Minnetaki was associated with both.

When he continued his pursuit he made his way with extreme caution.  At each new turn in the trail he fell behind some rock or clump of bushes and scanned the gorge as far as he could see ahead of him.  But each moment these distances of observation became shorter.  The ridge on his left became almost a sheer wall; on his right a second ridge closed in until the gorge had narrowed to a hundred feet in width, choked by huge masses of rock thrown there in some mighty upheaval of past ages.  It was very soon