The Curse of the Viking Grave by Farley Mowat

to break a trail for them.
    About 2:00 A.M. they reached the first of a chain of little lakes which they were to follow, and the going got better. Angeline, who had exhausted herself the previous day, was now so weary she could barely put one snowshoe ahead of the other. She kept up with the rest of them as best she could, and made no complaint. But when they stopped for a brief rest at the end of the first lake, Zabadees gave her a quick glance and spoke briefly to Awasin.
    â€œHe says his load is light,” Awasin told his sister. “The going is better now, and he says you can ride on his sled. It would be wise to do that, for you will soon be too tired to keep up on foot.”
    Too weary to argue, Angeline obediently slipped off her snowshoes and climbed on the back of Zabadees’s sled where she curled up with a deerhide over her.
    The teams moved slowly over a low, spruce-covered ridge to the next lakelet. But when they were again on firm, smooth ice, the boys saw that Zabadees was rapidly pulling away from them. They thought nothing of it, for it was easy enough to follow his sled trail; but by the time they had reached the third in the chain of little lakes, he and his team were completely out of sight. They did not see him again until the opalescent light of dawn faded the setting moon and turned the dark blue snow to somber gray. By then they had reached and crossed a deep inlet of Kasmere Lake (staying close to the shore in order to hide their trail) and had come to another bay, from the end of which there was a portage into the Putahow River system.
    Zabadees was waiting at the portage. Angeline was still sleeping soundly on his sled.
    â€œHe wants to know,” Awasin told Peetyuk and Jamie, “if we should go any farther.”
    â€œI think we can risk another hour on the trail,” Jamie replied. “They’ll have to heat up their engine before they take off, and probably they’ll eat first. Let’s push on a bit. We’re still too close to Kasmere House for comfort.”

    Zabadees nodded when he was told the decision. Hecalled to his team and started off at once, leaving the boys to follow without having had time to rest either themselves or their dogs.
    They caught up with him again on the fringe of a dense stand of black spruce beside the shore of the southern arm of Fisher Lake. He had already tramped down a trail into the heart of this thicket and soon the teams and sleds were well concealed.
    Â 
    The morning broke clear and bright—ideal weather for flying. Keeping their ears cocked for the sound of an aircraft engine, they had a cold breakfast of bannocks and boiled caribou meat. They were all bone-weary, and after feeding the dogs they spread their sleeping robes on piles of spruce boughs and lay down. Peetyuk and Zabadees went to sleep at once, and Awasin and Angeline soon followed them. But Jamie was too tense to sleep.
    For a long time he lay, half dozing. The swish of melting snow slipping off the branches of a spruce tree brought him wide awake, his heart pounding heavily. He tried to force himself to go to sleep, but he had hardly begun to doze again when the faintest of sounds—no louder than the hum of a mosquito—jolted him awake once more.
    This time there was no mistake. He reached over and shook Awasin. The two boys sat silent, every nerve drawn taut, straining toward the distant sound. Almost imperceptibly it grew louder, and Jamie concluded, with a sick certainty, that the airborne searchers must have spotted their trail. Then, mercifully, the far sound began to fade. Soon there was nothing to be heard in all the silent landexcept the guttural cry of a raven soaring high in the empty sky.
    â€œThey followed the false trail, Jamie,” Awasin said with a sudden outrush of pent-up breath. “It is all right now. They will not come our way.”
    The tension slowly ebbed and at last Jamie drifted into the dark depths of exhausted