He was convinced, however, that Bram would travel in the scrub timber close to the Barren.

He had already made up his mind that this Barren--the Great Barren of the unmapped north--was the great snow sea in which Bram had so long found safety from the law.

Beaching five hundred miles east and west, and almost from the Sixtieth degree to the Arctic Ocean, its un-peopled and treeless wastes formed a tramping ground for him as safe as the broad Pacific to the pirates of old.

He could not repress a shivering exclamation as his mind dwelt on this world of Bram's.

It was worse than the edge of the Arctic, where one might at least have the Eskimo for company.
He realized the difficulty of his own quest.