CHAPTER XIX 

THE DESERTED TEPEES 

Starting at daybreak, they reached a hillside overlooking the Stony village on the third afternoon. Surrounded by willows and ragged spruces, the conical tepees rose in the plain beneath, but Blake stopped abruptly as he caught sight of them. They were white to the apex, where the escaping heat of the fire within generally melted the snow, and no curl of smoke floated across the clearing. The village was ominously silent and had a deserted look. 

"I'm very much afraid Clarke's friends are not at home," Blake said with forced calm. "We'll know more about it in half an hour; that is, if you think it worth while to go down." 

Harding and Benson were silent a moment, struggling with their disappointment. They had made a toilsome journey to reach the village, their food was nearly exhausted, and it would cost them two days to return to the valley, which was their best road to the south. 

"Now that we're here, we may as well spend another hour over the job," Harding decided. "It's possible they haven't packed all their food along." 

His companions suspected that they were wasting time, but they followed him down the hill, until Benson, who was a short distance to one side of them, called out. When they joined him he indicated a row of footsteps leading up the slope. 

"That fellow hasn't been gone very long; there was snow yesterday," he said. "By the line he took, he must have passed near us. I wonder why he stayed on after the others." 
Were there many people there?
The village was ominously silent and had a deserted look. 