Though he was happiest when in his Norseman, soaring high above the rolling plains of spruce and birch, he had spent time enough down here on the ground, following the mysterious paths, trekking through the clustered boles, hauling canoes over portages or mushing dogsleds over the dazzling snows. And his woodcraft was second to none when it came to picking up a trail.

Onward and onward he traced those tracks through the thick verdure, sometimes only a broken twig serving to guide him, at other times, the prints appearing clearly set in soft soil. An hour passed and then another and still the tracks continued. The sun gradually reclined into the west, touching the white peaks of the Rockies and unfurling silken shadows across the land.

Quite suddenly, Jack pulled up short. He breathed a tight exclamation, cursing.

There in the trail, the vicious black jaws of a leghold trap yawned, patiently waiting for some unwary victim. Jack had very nearly put his foot in the trap before he saw it.

What was it doing here? he wondered. The tracks indicated that those he was pursuing had carefully stepped around it. Obviously they knew it was there, so they must have set it. And it was a safe bet they weren't interested in catching animals for fur. Obviously the trap had been set to catch human prey, to do precisely what it had very nearly done--catch anyone who tried to follow them the way he was doing.

Jack stepped over the trap and continued on, but more cautiously than before. There might be other traps waiting for him.

A few minutes later, Jack broke out of the thick forest to find himself facing a broad patch of stone, the tracks ending abruptly. He scowled angrily, cursing his luck. It would take some time to pick up the trail again on the other side. Nonetheless, the thought of giving up never entered the bush pilot's head. His was the dogged determination of the timber wolf, a grim unrelenting instinct that drove him on where other men would have turned back long since.

He crossed the wide open stone space, reaching the opposite side several minutes later. And there he stopped again, eyes widening in surprise.

Where the stone ran out, another open space began, a wide green meadow stretching away to the dark forest palisade further on. To the untrained eye, the green space would have appeared harmless. But Jack's eyes picked up details which caused an involuntary clenching of his jaw.

Scattered throughout the meadow were trees, mainly silver birch, but all were dead, long dead. They thrust up here and there like white bones, splintered and sharp at the ends. And, not far for one tree, what appeared to be a broken branch lay on the green vegetation. But Jack knew it wasn't a broken branch. It was the antlers of a moose--antlers no doubt still attached to the animal's skull hidden beneath a soft layer of muskeg.

For that was what this was, muskeg!

And even though Jack had crossed such spaces countless times in his travels, still just the sight of it caused a cold chill to ascent his spine. He knew that that meadow was really a mat of vegetation floating on water. In some places, the mat would be thick enough to support a man; Jack had even taken off in his Norseman on muskeg once or twice. The problem was, it was unpredictable. Suddenly, stepping on a thin patch, a man would sink without warning. And once that happened, for a lone man it meant almost certain death.

Of all the dangers of the Keewaydin in summer, muskeg was surely the greatest. Though lacking the ferocity of the grizzly or the thundering speed of the bull moose, it was infinitely patient, biding its time, waiting, just waiting for that single treacherous misstep to sink another victim into its unrelenting grip.

Staring across that sinister expanse, Jack wondered whether those he was following would have chanced it. Had they crossed the muskeg to the other side? If so, they must have known a safe way across...

But then, Jack's thoughts were interrupted by a sound. He looked quickly around. It was the whistling of whiskey-jacks, several of them, some distance away. Maybe his quarry hadn't crossed the muskeg, after all; whiskey-jacks meant a camp was nearby.

Moving quietly, Jack turned back, tracing the birds to the woods on the edge of the stone space. He plunged into the thicket, his tomahawk materializing in his hand. A few minutes later, he spotted the silver flicker of a whiskey-jack darting through the branches ahead. Finally he stopped as he heard the dull murmur of voices, and smelled camp smoke mingled with the tang of pine.

Evening shadows nestled thick beneath the trees and he had to strain to spot the two men. Both were dressed in military uniforms, Sten guns slung over their shoulders. They were just standing there on the edge of the trees, obviously keeping watch.

Creeping closer, Jack could see a silver lake gleaming behind them. Floating on the lake, next to a dock, were several bushplanes, five Junkers w34s, a couple of bigger Junkers "Flying Boxcar" Ju 52s, and several Fokker Super Universals. Separate from the other planes was another craft--and at the sight of it, Jack's knuckles turned white around the haft of his tomahawk.

It was a jet black Bellanca Pacemaker without identification markings. On the fuselage was painted a white snarling lynx.

The Pacemaker was similar to the Noorduyn Norseman, with the same pug nose and high wings, but it was slightly sleeker, with distinctive airfoil struts under the wings adding extra lift, like a bi-plane. It was a slickly beautiful craft, but, to Jack's eyes, somehow overly constructed. Jack's "Hell-damner" might be a little thicker, a little less polished, but it was better fitted to the rough, unforgiving demands of the bush.

There was only one man flew a black Pacemaker like that: Pierre Dubois, called "The Lynx". Somehow Jack wasn't surprised to find The Lynx somehow mixed up in all of this. The man was a true villain, a pariah among the bush pilot fraternity, the Brethren of the Bush. If there was anything Dubois wouldn't do for money, Jack had never heard of it.

Jack had last seen Dubois's Bellanca vanishing into a fog over Great Slave Lake, the engine cowling leaking thick torrents of smoke. It had been thought the man had perished, but somehow Jack had known otherwise. It would take more than that to kill The Lynx...

Abruptly, Jack's thoughts were interrupted by the sharp clack of a machine gun bolt. The sound came from behind him, but he didn't turn around.