To their surprise they struck several comparatively fresh trails in the passes, and they were soon forced to the conclusion that the hostile forces were still all about them.

Near midday they stopped in a narrow gorge between high peaks and listened to calls of the inhabitants of the forest, the faint howls of wolves, and once or twice the yapping of a fox.
"The warriors signaling to one another!" said Willet.
"It is so," said Tayoga.

"I think they have noticed our tracks in the earth, too slight, perhaps, to tell who we are, but they will undertake to see." "I hear the call of a moose directly ahead," said Robert, "although I know it is no moose that makes it.

Our way there is cut off." "And there is the howl of the wolf behind us," said Tayoga.

"We cannot go back." "Then," said Robert, "I suppose we must climb the mountain.