the next one, and they must not think him infallible.

As usual everybody seemed ready to fall in with his suggestion but George, who had a contrary streak in his make-up, and was always ready with objections and questions and serious shakings of the head. They called him "Doubting George," but grown people would long ago have dubbed him a pessimist, because he was always seeing the gloomy side of things, and wanting to be doubly convinced.

"But it seems to me," he started to say, "that we may be jumping out of the fryingpan into the fire if we do that. How do we know the cabin lies to the right?"

"We don't," replied Elmer, without manifesting any feeling over his opinion being questioned, for he knew George of old, and in fact would have been considerably surprised if the other had not put up what Toby called a "kick."

"Would you like to direct us, George?" asked the tall scout, whose name was Arthur Stansbury, but whom his schoolmates had in a spirit of fun long ago dubbed "Lil Artha," which ridiculous nick-name clung to him like a leech to this day, although he was fully a head above any of the other fellows.

"Oh! excuse me from taking that responsibility on my shoulders," George hastened to say, looking almost alarmed; "if I did, and happened to guess wrong, I'd never hear the end of it."

"So you admit that it'd have to be a guess, do you?" pursued Lil Artha mercilessly; "well, on the part of Elmer he's tried to reason the old thing out, and both Toby'n me feel that we can't do better than try what he says. I only hope the walking's better than it's been along this frozen creek, where the ice is too slippery for us to make use of the same. Why didn't we think to fetch our skates along?"

"I did think of it," Toby told him; "but it meant more weight to our packs; and then from what Uncle Caleb's told me about the lay of the country up here, I couldn't figure out how we'd find any use for skates where there was only swamp, marsh, and mebbe a few little crooked creeks nearly always covered with a foot of snow. So I fetched these bully snow-shoes instead. Don't I hope I'll have a chance to skim over the snow on the same, if we're lucky enough to get a heavy fall while up here."

"Perhaps we may get a storm before we're ready for it," observed Elmer drily, as he shot a dubious glance up at the gray sky that had such an ominous look.

Lil Artha jumped to his feet, showing signs of some excitement.

"Hey! let's be on the hike, fellows!" he exclaimed; "if a storm dropped on top of us right now it wouldn't do a thing to us, p'raps. We haven't got only enough grub for a single day. I guess matches are about the only thing we're heavy on, because we expected to eat our meals in Uncle Caleb's cabin most of the time."

"Well, matches are good things to have up here in the snow woods," remarked Elmer, who was an exact contrast to George in that he always saw the silver lining of the cloud, whereas the other scout could not get beyond the pall.

"You bet they are," Lil Artha went on to say, as he shouldered his pack, which he had arranged in regular Adirondack fashion, with a band across his forehead to assist in sustaining the weight; "though for that matter, if we went shy of the same I reckon you could depend on me to get fire by making a little bow, and sawing the same on a pointed stick, South Sea Islander way. I've done it more'n once, though I never seem able to depend on my cunning. Something goes wrong so often; or else I'm in too big a hurry, and spoil everything. But if you're ready lead off, Elmer. We'll trip along in your tracks, and keep it up for another hour anyway. That rest did us all a heap of good."

The four scouts kept pushing on steadily. Elmer in the van continued to maintain a bright lookout for any sign of footprints in the snow that would give them encouragement, though as time passed, and he failed to find any such, the rosy hopes with which they had started began to gradually fade away.

Of course the others also kept their eyes about them, in hopes of sighting a lone cabin, or discovering smoke rising amidst the trees. Hope died hard, and only George grumbled when more than half an hour had crept on without their running upon the first sign that would mean success.

Once Elmer had pointed out to them the tracks of a fox, and of course being true scouts, they were all greatly interested in examining the trail, and speculating on whether it had been of the ordinary red variety, or a gray animal, perhaps one of those silver-black foxes, the pelt of which is often valued at as much as fifteen hundred dollars.

Elmer had settled this question by picking up a hair he found caught on the split end of a branch that grew low down, and which the body of the fox, as well as his brushy tail, must have scraped as he slipped past. It was plainly a red hair, and even George could not find any cause for disputing that evidence, though he was far from happy, and in a fit mood for argument if the occasion arose.

Several other times Elmer pointed to the unmistakable track of a bounding rabbit, and had they had more time at their disposal the boys would have liked nothing better than to follow these, so as to figure out what was chasing bunny to induce him to take such enormous jumps. But the fact of their being astray in that unknown forest, with night not far away, and a heavy snow-storm brooding over them, rather discouraged them from turning aside from the main thing that engaged their attention, which of course was the finding of the trapper's cabin.

Nobody paid the least attention to George when they heard him grunting away in the rear, because George would not have been happy unless he was miserable, strange though that may sound. There is generally a boy built after that fashion in every crowd of scouts. As a rule he has some good qualities that make his friends forgive his bad ones, and finally they get so accustomed to his grumblings that they pay little attention to them. In fact George's complainings had little more effect on his boon companions than so much water poured on a duck's back would. It amused him to grunt and object, and hurt them very little, so what was the sense of making any trouble?

Another fifteen minutes crept along. There did not seem to be any particular change in things, except that the light was showing signs of failing, and perhaps George stumbled more frequently, for he was not as spry on his feet when carrying a pack as the other fellows.

"Don't seem to be over this way either, Elmer," suggested Lil Artha, finally.

"That's right, Uncle Caleb's cabin appears to be as hard to locate as a needle in a haystack," admitted the leader of the Wolf Patrol, cheerily; as though it would have to be something more than this to discourage him, because he had made it his business in life to always look at the bright side of things; and knew that no matter how gloomy the prospect might be it could seem much worse.

"That settles it!" came abruptly from George in the rear.

"What's the matter with you back there; stubbed your toe again? We'll have to make a scout litter and carry you the rest of the way, if you keep on falling over every old log there is," Lil Artha told him, severely.

"'Tain't that this time, mind you," the delinquent one answered back, with a triumphant grin; "but what's the use trying to poke along any further? Might as well be killed for a sheep as a lamb, any day. This place looks like it'd make a good camp for to-night."

"Camp?" echoed Toby.

"Sure thing!" snapped George. "We're all tuckered out, and as hungry as wolves in the dead of winter; night's comin' on right fast; and then if you take a look you'll see that it's begun to snow!"