CHAPTER X.Isobel's Disappearance.
Four hundred miles as an arrow might fly, five hundred by snowshoes and dog-sledge; up the Pelican Lake waterway, straight north along the edge of the Geikie Barrens, and from Wollaston westward, Philip hurried--not toward the hiding place of William DeBar, but toward Lac Bain.
A sledge and six dogs with a half-breed driver took him from Le Pas as far as the Churchill; with two Crees, on snow-shoes, he struck into the Reindeer country, and two weeks later bought a sledge and three dogs at an Indian camp on the Waterfound.

On the second day, in the barrens to the west, one of the dogs slit his foot on a piece of ice; on the third day the two remaining dogs went lame, and Philip and his guide struck camp at the headwater of the Gray Beaver, sixty miles from Lac Bain.

It was impossible for the dogs to move the following day, so Philip left his Indian to bring them in later and struck out alone.
That day he traveled nearly thirty miles, over a country broken by timbered ridges, and toward evening came to the beginning of the open country that lay between him and the forests about Lac Bain.

It had been a hard day's travel, but he did not feel exhausted.

The full moon was rising at nine o'clock, and Philip rested for two hours, cooking and eating his supper, and then resumed his journey, determined to make sufficient progress before camping to enable him to reach the post by the following noon.