valley stream but continued to travel through the deeper forest. She had soon wandered away from the vaguely defined runway and was forced to seek out her pathway. Through occasional openings in the treetops, Dexter caught glimpses of the north-bearing star Capella, which the Indians call the "little white goat." For a while, the fugitive had kept on in a northerly direction, but presently the trail began to bend to the left, turning towards the back hills. And as the corporal followed, he began to realize that he was swinging on a wide arc towards the west. The line of prints meandered back and forth in a rather aimless way, but the trend of divergence was always to the left. By the signs, he inferred that the woman had missed her bearings, and, as usually is the case with lost people, was circling gradually around the compass.

Experienced wayfarers of the wilderness learn to "average" their windings, always bearing towards an imaginary fixed point ahead, like a ship tacking at sea. The star Capella served tonight as an infallible guiding beacon for travelers in the trackless country. But the woman, whoever she was, continued to wander farther and farther off her original course. By the time he had followed a half-hour on her trail Dexter was certain that she was a newcomer in the northland.

In spite of darkness and the denseness of the timber, she still kept up her rapid pace. It seemed to her pursuer that she was in panic-stricken flight. Surely she must tire very soon. But her circling path led Dexter on and on through the dismal forest and still there was no evidence of lagging on the trail. He was beginning to marvel at the story of brave endurance that he read in the trail of the little footprints. The fugitive might not be versed in woodcraft, but nevertheless she seemed to have the pluck and physical stamina of a seasoned voyageur.

The corporal had his lamp to light the way before him, and he plowed through the snow with enormous energy. He was certain that he gained steadily, yet at the end of an hour, he had not overtaken the woman.

By almost imperceptible degrees, the line of tracks kept on curving in a left-hand arc, and after winding his way for another twenty or thirty minutes through the hushed labyrinths of the woods, he became aware that he was now heading more southerly than west. He trudged onward until a rift in the drooping branches overhead gave him a momentary glimpse of the sky, and he found the beacon star twinkling above his left shoulder. The trail he followed had swung around the compass, and he was traveling back to the east. He half smiled 

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