She shook her head.
"We can't hide our trail, and they'll follow it like sheep."
After a quarter of a mile, she turned sharply to the west. Smoke noticed that they were going through unpacked snow, but neither he nor Shorty observed that the dim trail they had been on still led south. Had they witnessed the subsequent procedure of Louis Gastell, the history of the Klondike would have been written differently; for they would have seen that old-timer, no longer limping, running with his nose to the trail like a hound, following them. Also, they would have seen him trample and widen the turn they had made to the west. And, finally, they would have seen him keep on the old dim trail that still led south.
A trail did run up the creek, but so slight was it that they continually lost it in the
