Even Peter was amazed at the prodigality of his master.  An hour later they ate, and McKay drank a quart of hot coffee before he was done.  Half of his fatigue was gone and he sat back for a few minutes to finish off with the luxury of his pipe.  Peter, gorged with caribou meat, stretched himself out to sleep.  But his eyes did not close.  His master puzzled him.  For after a little Jolly Roger put on his heavy coat and parkee and pocketed his pipe.  After that he slipped the straps of his pack over head and shoulders and then, even more to Peter’s bewilderment, emptied a quart bottle of kerosene over the pile of dry wood behind the hot stove.  To this he touched a lighted match.  His next movement drew from Peter a startled yelp.  With a single thrust of his foot he sent the stove crashing into the middle of the floor.

Half an hour later, when Peter and Jolly Roger looked back from the crest of the ridge, a red pillar of flame lighted up the gloomy chaos of the unpeopled world they were leaving behind them.  The wind was driving fiercely from the Barren and with it came stinging volleys of the fine drift-snow.  In the teeth of it Roger McKay stared back.

“It’s a good fire,” he mumbled in his hood.  “Half an hour and it will be out.  There’ll be nothing for Breault to find if this wind keeps up another two hours—­nothing but drift-snow, with no sign of trail or cabin.”

He struck out, leaving the shelter of the ridge.  Straight south he went, keeping always in the open spaces where the wind-swept drift covered his snowshoe trail almost as soon as it was made.  Darkness did not trouble him now.  The open barren was ahead, miles of it, while only a little to the westward was the shelter of timber.  Twice he blundered to the edge of this timber, but quickly set his course again in the open, with the wind always quartering at his back.  He could only guess how long he kept on.  The time came when he began to count the swing of his snowshoes, measuring off half a mile, or a mile, and then beginning over again until at last the achievement of five hundred steps seemed to take an immeasurable length of time and great effort.  Like the ache of a tooth came the first warning of snowshoe cramp in his legs.  In the black night he grinned.  He knew what it meant—­a warning as deadly as swimmer’s cramp in deep water.  If he continued much longer he would be crawling on his hands and knees.

Quickly he turned in the direction of the timber.  He had traveled three hours, he thought, since abandoning his cabin to the flames.  Another half hour, with the caution of slower, shorter steps, brought him to the timber.  Luck was with him and he cried aloud to Peter as he felt himself in the darkness of a dense cover of spruce and balsam.  He freed himself from his entangled snowshoes and went on deeper into the shelter.  It became warmer and they could feel no longer a breath of the wind.