CHAPTER XVBILL AND THOMAS

Yet when Dr. Brady opened his medicine case and attempted to vaccinate them, they repulsed him stoutly. They were afraid of the doctor. His instruments frightened them. It was evident that they believed that his ministrations were for no other purpose than to subject them to some new and mysterious torture. Finally, the young Indian rose threateningly and commanded them to depart.

As he did so, Dick drew back in surprise. The Indian wore boots, heavy top-boots—the service boots of the Royal Mounted Police—and, what was even more astonishing, a service revolver in its holster at his side. For a full moment he stared at the tell-tale articles, scarcely believing his eyes. Where had the Indian secured these things? Certainly not from the police—unless they had been taken by force or stolen. Dick’s arm trembled as he took Dr. Brady’s arm and pulled him toward the entrance.

“Come on, doctor, we’d better get out of here. It’s no use.”

Outside the tepee, he turned quickly upon his companion:

“I say, doctor, did you notice what that young Indian wore?”

“No,” replied Dr. Brady, “I didn’t notice particularly. Moosehide garments, weren’t they?”

“No. No. The boots, I mean—the revolver!”

“Yes, he did have boots. Rather queer, isn’t it? They usually wear moccasins.”

“Usually wear moccasins!” exploded Dick. “Why those were mounted police boots. They’re different. No one else wears them. And that revolver, holster and belt could have been obtained from no other person on earth except a policeman.”

“That’s strange. I wonder how he came by them?”

Dick did not answer immediately. His mind had turned to very sober thoughts. The more he dwelt upon this unusual circumstance—an Indian wearing mounted police boots and carrying a service revolver—the more he became perplexed. As they made their way back to their own party, his suspicions grew. A great fear tugged at his heart.

“Dr. Brady,” he began very soberly, “I don’t like this. I’m afraid——”

The physician turned and smiled.

“What? Still thinking about those boots? I wouldn’t worry, if I were you, Dick. The explanation is probably simple enough. The boots and revolver might have been discarded. Aren’t you troubling yourself needlessly?”

“No, I think not. You remember Corporal Rand, don’t you, the man Inspector Cameron spoke of, the one he sent up here ahead of us, and about whom he was so worried?”

“Why, yes,” said Dr. Brady. “Corporal Rand. The name is familiar.”

“Well,” trembled Dick, “I have a terrible suspicion that those boots and that revolver belong to him.”

It was Brady’s turn to become grave.

“And you believe that he——”

“I don’t know what to believe,” Dick filled in the pause. “It looks bad. They might have killed him. They——”

He broke off, overcome by such a probability.

“You see, doctor,” he resumed, “Corporal Rand wouldn’t carry an extra pair of boots and probably not an extra revolver along with him. Just remember that. If the Indian didn’t kill him, something or someone else did. He might have taken those things off Rand’s dead body. Somehow, I feel that I ought to go back and question him—make him talk. I don’t like the looks of this.”

They were now within a short distance of their own party, and an idea suddenly occurred to Dick.

“Tell you what I’ll do. I’ll get Toma to go with me. He speaks the Indian language more fluently. The two of us will go over there armed and compel that rascal to confess. And we won’t come back either until——”

Dr. Brady interrupted him. Dr. Brady had seized him by the shoulders and was staring into his face, his eyes wide with excitement. Then he swung the younger man in front of him, released him, and with one trembling hand pointed in the direction of their camp.

“Look at that! Look at that! What? I say——”

Instantly Dick’s body grew taut. The color drained from his cheeks. He shook off the restraining hand and started forward. He ran. He shouted out at the top of his voice, one hand fumbling with the holster at his side. In his haste to get forward quickly, he stumbled and fell. As he rose to his feet, he broke into an exclamation of dismay.

He was too late! The long-looked-for attack had taken place. The drivers had overpowered Toma and Sandy, had seized the guns, two of the dog teams and sledges, loaded with supplies, and were now hurrying back. They had accomplished their purpose and had made good their escape. When Dick reached the scene of disaster a few minutes later, he cried out in his rage and exasperation.

Thrown across one of the sledges were Toma and Sandy, bound securely hand and foot. A few yards away, lying helplessly in the snow, was the unconscious form of one of the drivers, who, upon closer examination, proved to be Lamont. Everywhere was confusion and disorder. Several of the sledges had been overturned, their loads scattered.

Dick took out his hunting knife and cut the rope which bound his two chums. They were both a little dazed, but had not been seriously hurt. They looked at him with sombre eyes.

“How did it happen?” asked Dick.

Sandy sat up and commenced rubbing his chafed arms and legs. Tears of exasperation trickled down his cheeks.

“It came so—so suddenly, Dick,” he choked. “I can’t begin to tell you. We were sitting on the mail sledge, when one of the drivers came along, passing about twenty feet away. He acted queerly. He commenced to groan, and then suddenly he fell down in the snow, just as if he had fainted dead away. It was a trick—but we didn’t know it. We rushed over to help him. We were stooping down when they came up from behind—the whole crowd of them, and seized us so quickly we didn’t have a chance. I’m so—so——”

Fresh tears trickled from his eyes again.

“But Lamont—what’s he doing there? What happened to him? If you didn’t have a chance to do anything, how did he receive his injury?”

“Toma—— When they grappled with him, he fired from his hip and got Lamont.”

Dr. Brady, who had come panting up in time to hear Sandy’s story, now turned toward the prostrate body of the guide, and with the help of Dick and Toma, carried him over and placed him on one of the sledges.

“He’ll never make the trip,” presently announced the doctor. “He’s hit in the shoulder—a dangerous wound—and will never be able to stand the jarring and jolting of one of the sledges. We’ll have to leave him here.”

“How can we do that?” asked Sandy. “He’d freeze. He’d—he’d——”

“There’s the Indian encampment,” suggested the physician. “They can look after him.”

“Good riddance,” declared Dick. “I, for one, won’t be sorry.”

There followed an awkward silence.

“The Indian encampment,” said Dick at length, “will be forced not only to look after Lamont but to supply us with several drivers. Perhaps one of them will know the way to Keechewan.”

He paused, gesturing hopelessly.

“In any event, we’ll have to push on. We can’t stop.”

Dr. Brady nodded grimly.

In front of a crackling wood fire, three men dried their wet and bedraggled garments. In spite of the close proximity to the blaze they shivered and their teeth chattered and they looked very unhappy and uncomfortable, indeed. Two of the men wore the conventional garb of white prospector or trapper, while the third, a tall, rather handsome fellow with clear blue eyes and a decisive chin, was arrayed in what might once have been a uniform of his majesty’s Royal North West Mounted Police.

“We gotta thank you,” said one of the men quite humbly, “fer gettin’ us out of that river. Yuh saved our lives all right, but our grub-stake an’ ever’thing we had is gone.”

“Yes,” he resumed mournfully. “Gone! It’s Bill’s fault.”

“I think,” said the man in the wretched uniform, “that it was partly my fault. I startled him. I shouldn’t have cried out to you. It drew his attention and for a moment he must have forgotten to steer.”

The maligned and unfortunate person referred to as “Bill,” drew himself up to a proud height and grunted his disdain. Then he turned his back haughtily upon his partner and addressed himself to the man in the uniform.

“Thomas here,” he declared deprecatingly, jerking one thumb over his shoulder, “ain’t allers responsible fer what he says. I wasn’t the only one that’s been a steerin’ o’ that boat. He was a helpin’ too. An’ he kep’ puttin’ me off, Thomas did, with his jabbin’ here an’ there in the water, like the crazy fool what he is.”

“No such thing,” remonstrated Thomas. “Did yuh tell the officer what yuh done yisterday? I ’spose that wuz all my fault too—you runnin’ aground.”

Bill wheeled about so swiftly that his dripping garments sprayed water in every direction. For a moment even the fire sputtered.

“A lie!” shouted the now infuriated Bill. “I wuz asleep in the boat an’——”

He paused for breath.

“Asleep when yuh wuz supposed to be on duty,” his partner completed the sentence for him. “That’s the trouble with you, Bill. You don’t pay no ’tention to nothin’. Yuh don’t use your brains; yuh don’t look; yuh don’t listen. Yuh go ’round dreamin’, with your head up in the air an’ your intelligence in the seat o’ your pants. An’,” Thomas completed his lecture defiantly, “I won’t take that back neither.”

The conversation had reached a critical, dangerous stage, and the man in the frayed uniform thought it wise to intervene.

“If you’ll pardon me, gentlemen, I believe I can settle this dispute. I’ve been thinking it over, and the more I think about it, the more clearly it appears to me that the responsibility is all mine. It was my shout that startled both of you, that put you off—that caused all the trouble. I’d like to apologize.”

“It wuz a terrible shout,” admitted Thomas.

“Sounded like the howl of a madman,” declared Bill. “But yuh saved our lives an’ that’s somethin’ I won’t forget in a hurry. We’d be down in the bottom of the river now, keepin’ company with our rifles an’ our grub-stake, if it hadn’t been for you.”

The man in the uniform acknowledged the compliment with a somewhat weary smile.

“I’m afraid I saved you from one disaster only to plunge you into another. What are you going to do now?”

“Jus’ what do yuh mean?” asked Bill.

“How will you manage without rifles and supplies?”

Bill shook his head mournfully and turned to his partner.

“He’s askin’ yuh a question,” he upbraided him, “can’t yuh hear?”

Thomas immediately applied himself to the problem in hand. He stared gloomily at the fire. Suddenly he brightened. He addressed the mounted policeman:

“But you got grub, ain’t yuh? You can sell us a little—enough to take us over to Half-Way House.”

“I’m almost in as bad straits as you are. I have a little flour—five or six pounds. I’ve had trouble too.”

“Five or six pounds o’ flour ain’t very much fer three hungry men like us,” ruminated Bill.

“Worse than nothin’,” said Thomas bitterly. “An’ that’s all yuh got?”

“All. Absolutely all! Found it in a cabin back here in the woods. I’m very sorry, gentlemen.”

Thomas dismissed the matter with a wave of his hand.

“If it can’t be helped—it can’t. I been plenty hungry before this.”

“Me too,” murmured Bill.

An interval of silence, during which three men shivered and shook before the fire—a fire that had commenced to burn itself out. Red, angry embers blinked up at them.

“Your turn to gather more wood,” Bill informed Thomas.

Thomas scowled at the unpleasant imminence of this chilly duty and spat disgustedly into the lowering flames.

“Yuh better hurry,” implacably his partner spurred him on. “We’ll soon be freezin’ entirely. There ain’t enough heat here to warm a sparrow.”

Thomas grunted out an oath before he departed, purposely bumping against Bill as he lumbered past.

“Yuh can see the sort o’ disposition he’s got,” Bill complained to the policeman. “I been aputtin’ up with this sort o’ thing fer ten years now—ten years this comin’ March since we become partners.”

In spite of the fact that he was shivering, uncomfortable, worried, suffering untold agonies from his feet, the man in the frayed uniform smiled quietly to himself.

“Why don’t you break your partnership?” he suggested.

“Eh—what? What did yuh say, officer? Break up——”

For a moment Bill was so amazed, so utterly dumfounded at this simple solution to his difficulties, that he could not find words to express himself.

“That’s what I said. Break up your partnership. Quit each other. Each go your own way,” elucidated the policeman.

It was an appalling thought. Unthinkable. Bill tried to picture a bleak pattern of existence from which Thomas had become erased. It filled him with a sense of loss so tremendously acute that it positively hurt. Little shivers of dismay ran up along his spine and seemed to settle there.

“Oh, Thomas ain’t so bad, once yuh get used to him,” he said. “Thomas got a queer way about him, an’ he’s cantankerous an’ stubborn, but he really don’t mean nothin’. Besides, I don’t rightly know what Thomas’d do after I left. He’s sort o’ helpless without me. He’s got so he sort o’ depends on me. Wouldn’t be worth his salt. I’d hate fer his sake——”

Thomas himself interrupted the conversation at this point by striding up with a huge armful of wood and throwing it angrily down upon the fire.

“Yuh can toast your shins now,” he declared angrily, glancing at Bill. “But next time it’s your turn.”

“Next time it’s my turn,” admitted Bill pleasantly. “I won’t ferget.”

“You’ll likely be asleep by then,” sputtered Thomas. “Great guns!—but ain’t that wind cold?”

“Winter’ll soon be here,” Bill croaked, humping up his shoulders and fighting back the smoke that drifted up around his head and into his eyes. “Six pounds o’ flour between three men an’ winter, an’ five hundred miles to the nearest tradin’ post.”

“Keechewan Mission is closer than that,” Thomas corrected him. “I ’spose we can go that way.”

“Not me,” shivered Bill. “I’m as close to Keechewan Mission as I intend to get.”

“Did you come from there?” sharply inquired the policeman.

“No,” answered Thomas, “but we heard about it. It’s rotten with smallpox an’ boilin’ with trouble like a hot teakettle. It ain’t no good place fer a white man to be.”

“I’m going there,” said the policeman.

“Yuh don’t say?” gasped both men in one voice.

“If I can make it on two pounds of flour,” appended the policeman.

“You said yuh had six,” remembered Thomas.

“I’ll divide with you in the morning.”

Bill and Thomas exchanged glances of genuine wonder and admiration.

“I’d like tuh shake hands with you,” declared Thomas in an awed voice, offering one dirty paw.

“Me too,” said Bill, extending a hand equally as dirty. “You’re a real man an’ no mistake about that. What’s your name, officer?”

“Corporal Rand.”

“Where from?”

“Mackenzie barracks.”

“If I ain’t gettin’ personal, where’s your boots?”

“A Nitchie stole them one night while I slept.”

“The dirty skunk!”

“An’ your revolver?” noticed Thomas.

“Stole that too.”

“Yuh mean to tell me,” exploded Bill, “that you’re goin’ up to Keechewan like that—no boots, two pounds o’ flour an’ nothin’ to protect yourself with when them rampagin’ Nitchies catch sight o’ yuh? If cold an’ hunger don’t get yuh, the smallpox will, an’ if the smallpox don’t get yuh, the Nitchies will. Yuh got about as much chance to come back alive as I have o’ jumpin’ up to the moon.”

“You’re a fool to try it,” grumbled Thomas.

“I have my instructions,” said Corporal Rand, and then remembered suddenly that this was not the truth. “I mean to say, I did have my instructions.”

“An’ yuh lost ’em?”

“No. The inspector changed his mind. He decided to go himself.”

“Why didn’t yuh let him?”

“It was either his life or mine.”

Thomas was puzzled. He appealed to Bill.

“I can’t make nothin’ out of this, can you?”

Bill came to the rescue. He picked up the thread of discourse, where the other had let it fall.

“Do yuh mean to say that this here inspector’s life is worth more to you than what your own is? That don’t seem reasonable.”

“I intend to give you four pounds of flour in the morning,” Corporal Rand smiled. “Now do you mean to tell me that your lives are worth more to me than my own. Just figure it out.”

Bill and Thomas exchanged worried, doubtful glances, and commenced to figure. For twenty long minutes they threaded their way through a deep and abysmal mental swamp.

“I can’t make it out,” acknowledged Thomas.

“Me neither,” grumbled Bill. “You’re a bloomin’ martyr an’ no mistake.”

“We ain’t got nothin’ we can give you,” lamented Thomas, feeling in all of his pockets.

Then suddenly his face brightened.

“Here,” he announced proudly, presenting it, “is somethin’ yuh can have. Take it. Yuh never can tell. Mebbe it’ll save your life.”

Corporal Rand received the gift in the spirit that it was given. Nor did he belittle such a gift. Too well he knew the vagaries of the North, the unexpected turns of fortune, good and bad, the little inconsequential things upon which hinge life or death itself. Moisture had gathered in his eyes as carefully, almost lovingly, he put the gift away in an inner pocket:

Three fishhooks and a ball of string!

Dick, Sandy and Toma hurried over to the Indian encampment in the afternoon of the same day the dog drivers had deserted them. Toma, it was decided, would act as interpreter, while Sandy—as he expressed it—merely trailed along to lend his moral support and to give advice.

“You must offer them unheard of wages for the trip,” reasoned Sandy. “We must give them presents and supplies. These Indians don’t know the meaning or value of money, so you’d better make them an offer they can understand. I’d start out by offering each one a brand new rifle and a winter’s grub-stake, also some bright-colored cloth for the squaws.”

“That not bad idea,” Toma approved. “I tell ’em that. I do my best. I say plenty. Make ’em good speech.”

“You can say anything you like,” Dick instructed him, “but don’t promise them anything we can’t give.”

So Toma, in his role of employment agent, made a round of the tepees. He was received warmly and, thus encouraged, waxed eloquent. He described to them the vast number of beautiful and useful things that could be obtained in the stores at the mission: Fruits (dried), of delicious flavor, from lands beyond the seas; meat from animals they had never tasted (pork); flour in large quantities for the making of bannock; sugar, both brown and white. Then, taking a new tack, for the benefit of the women, he told them about the multi-colored fabrics of wool and silk and cotton, of ornaments for the fingers and beads for the neck, of things that pleased and delighted the eye.

The Indians sat in open-mouthed wonder as Toma went breathlessly on with his fanciful description of the gifts that might be theirs if only the young men would assist them in driving the dog teams to Keechewan. And in order to convince them of the sincerity of his intentions, at Dick’s request, he offered each of the families a small quantity of tea, sugar and bacon, to be delivered at once.

The leader of the Indians at the encampment made a quick calculation. Besides himself, he told Toma, there were eight able-bodied hunters. They could spare a few of these. Perhaps half could go. They would be very glad to help their white brothers. They would appreciate the gifts described. Toma and his friends could be assured of their co-operation.

A surge of happiness ran through Dick as he listened to the leader’s words. Then he bethought him of Lamont, and his face clouded.

“Toma,” he directed in English, “tell the leader about Lamont. Ask him if we can leave him here until we return.”

After the request had been made, the boys waited expectantly.

“Who is this injured brother?” demanded the chief.

“A worthless dog,” replied Toma. “He was a traitor to us. He and his companions fought us, and during the encounter I was compelled to shoot him.”

The Indian’s face darkened.

“Will my brother promise not to shoot any of my people?”

Toma hastened to set his mind at rest. Then he asked:

“When will your young men be ready to start? We are very anxious to proceed on our journey.”

“Tomorrow morning,” answered the leader.

In high spirits, the three chums left the Indian encampment and went back to their own camp. Dr. Brady greeted them anxiously.

“What luck?” he asked.

“I think we have been successful,” Dick informed him.

“How many men?”

“The leader said four.”

“And will they look after Lamont?”

“Yes, they gave us their promise. I think we’d better take him over there right away and pitch our tents. Might as well be there as here. Saves running back and forth, and besides, we promised the Indians a small quantity of provisions.”

The remainder of the day passed quickly. A place was made for Lamont, and Dr. Brady succeeded in extracting the bullet and washed and dressed the wound. The guide had recovered consciousness by this time and lay staring up at the brown walls of the tepee with dark malevolent eyes.

When morning came, the boys rose early and went over to the leader’s tepee, pleased when they found him and his household already awake.

“Are your young men ready?” asked Toma. “We wish to start.”

For some inexplicable reason, during the night the Indian’s manner had cooled. He received them with little of his former cordiality.

“Are your young men ready?” persisted Toma.

The leader fixed them with a sombre stare and, to the boys’ surprise and astonishment, shook his head.

“They have asked me to inform you that they have changed their minds.”

“Changed their minds!” Sandy started back in dismay, while Dick rubbed his eyes, under the impression that he had not heard aright.

“They have decided not to go,” repeated the leader.

“Toma,” said Dick in hoarse undertones, “tell him to summon those young men and we will talk to them. They must go. They have promised.”

The Indian complied with the request. Soon the young men appeared before them and stood awkwardly and shyly beside their leader. But every argument failed to move them. No, they would not go. They must look after their trap-lines. They were very sorry to disappoint their white brothers, but the thing was impossible.

In desperation, Toma made a brief summary of his speech of the day before. They were foolish to spurn his offer. He would even increase his reward. Instead of one rifle, he would give them two, and many traps and cartridges.

This time, however, his oratory suffered from repetition. The young men were very much interested but not enthusiastic. Only one of the four stepped forward to announce that he would go. Further argument proved useless.

“Well,” said Dick, turning to Dr. Brady, “one man is better than none at all. We’ll manage somehow, I suppose. I wonder if this young man knows the way to the mission?”

Upon being questioned, the Indian declared that he did.

“I will show you the way,” he informed Toma.

Disappointed, the boys made their preparations for the start. Soon they were on the trail, their teams doubled up—twelve dogs in one string, pulling two sleighs; ten in another, while the only single team were the six malemutes who pulled the mail sledge. However, they were scarcely out of sight of the encampment, when, looking back, Sandy saw two figures on snowshoes, following them at a rapid rate.

“Stop!” he shouted to his companions ahead, immediately checking his own team.

They waited until the two figures came up to them, two Indians from the encampment: the leader and, to the boys’ surprise, the young Indian, who wore the service boots and revolver of the mounted police.

“What do you want?” demanded Toma.

“This young man,” replied the leader, pointing to his companion, “wishes to go with you too.”

For a moment, Dick was in a quandary. He required the fellow’s assistance, yet he was afraid to include him in their party. The Indian might be a murderer or a thief. His appearance was against him. He might prove to be a worse customer than Lamont. The leader noticed Dick’s hesitation.

“He is a very good man on the trail,” he hastened to assure them. “You will not be sorry if you take him.”

“All right,” decided Dick, “he can come along.”

After all, he reasoned, it would be just as well if he did. Perhaps they might be able to discover the mystery of those boots.

Again the party started forward. With the acquisition of the man in the mounted police boots, they were now able to send one of their number forward to break trail. They hurried quickly along, and by noon had reached a height of land, looking down from which, they perceived the rugged valley of the Wapiti River. At sight of it, the boys’ delight was unbounded.

“We’re getting along splendidly,” remarked Sandy. “If only the weather will stay like it is, it won’t be very long now until we reach Keechewan.”

“I hope weather get cold,” said Toma. “Weather been warm now for two, three days. If it get cold, make ’em crust on snow. No need to break trail. Then we be able to go along very fast—mebbe fifty, sixty miles in one day. Dogs run all time.”

“Yes, that’s true.”

But it was not until three days later, after they had crossed the Wapiti and were proceeding northward across a level, wind-swept district, that colder weather actually arrived. A fierce Arctic blast beat down upon them, chilling their blood. Particles of frost hung in the air. Trees cracked, as the intense cold penetrated within, freezing the sap. Yet, though the weather was almost unendurable, Toma’s prophecy had come true, and they were able to speed across the level waste, the miles dropping away behind them.

One night, following an intensely bitter spell of cold, they drew up to make camp in the lee of a tree-covered hill. All night long they took turn in replenishing the fires. But even with this help, and wrapped in blankets, fold on fold, they had difficulty in keeping warm. They were glad when morning came.

“I hope,” shivered Dick to Sandy, muffling his face in the collar of his fur coat, “that the weather moderates a little before night. This is terrible. It must be fifty below.”

“Seems more like seventy-five below to me,” grumbled Sandy, stirring the fire with a long poplar stick, his eyes blinking as a flurry of wind caught the smoke and sent it whirling around him.

At this juncture, Dr. Brady came hurrying up, gesturing excitedly.

“I’ve more bad news for you, Dick. Just found out. Toma and I made the discovery.”

Dick was conscious of a sudden sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach.

“What is it, doctor?” he finally managed to articulate.

“Your team of malemutes is gone, and——”

“Oh, you must be mistaken,” interrupted Dick. “They’re here somewhere.”

“And the mail sledge is gone too, including all that quantity of vaccine.”

Sandy threw up his hands in a gesture of hopeless surrender.

“Is that all?” he groaned.

“No,” answered the physician more calmly, “the Indian with the mounted police boots is gone too.”

Dick gave way to his feeling of despair. He put his head in his hands and rocked back and forth.

“I knew it! I knew it!” he moaned. “I knew all the time that I ought not trust that—that miserable thief. I hesitated when his services were offered to me. I’m a fool. Why did I take him?”

“What I can’t understand,” Sandy broke forth, “—what I can’t understand, Dick, is why he should take the sledge with the mail. There isn’t a single thing on that sledge that would be of the least value to him.”

“Of course, he didn’t know that,” Brady spoke up. “To his simple ignorant mind, those pouches of mail must have contained something of immense value. He’ll be a very sorry, disgusted and probably repentant Indian when he discovers his mistake.”

“He’ll be a repentant Indian when I get my hands on him,” stormed Dick, jumping to his feet and pulling his parka in place. “Well, I might just as well go after him.”

“He has about three hours start of you,” said Dr. Brady. “The only time he could have left this party was between four and five o’clock, when he was awakened to take his turn in replenishing the fires.”

“I’ll unload one of the sledges and take the swiftest team we have,” decided Dick. “Travelling light, I ought to be able to overtake him.”

“Can I go with you, Dick?” Sandy asked eagerly.

“I’d like to have you, Sandy, but Toma is better on the trail. I must hurry. Every minute counts. Dr. Brady, will you help Sandy pick out and harness a team, while Toma and I unload a sledge? We’ll take our rifles and a few days’ provisions.”

In less than twenty minutes, they were ready. The dogs strained at their harness, eager to start. Toma took his place in the front of the sledge, Dick behind. A whip cracked. The voices of Dr. Brady and Sandy called out an encouraging farewell.

The huskies leaped forward.

A cold bitter wind hurled its defiance along the slope, its shrieking voice trumpeting through the pines. In the sky—a vast canopy flung over a frozen world—the sun shone wanly. On either side of the sun hung sun-dogs. In the air—frost. Below, a limitless, monotonous expanse of snow.

In the sledge, which flew along over the hard snow-surface, Dick and Toma sat muffled to their ears. From time to time, they beat their arms about their shivering bodies and urged on the dogs. Already they had come eight or ten miles along the faint trail they had made on the previous day.

In their pursuit of the Indian they had expected, quite naturally, to go southwestward in the direction of the Indian encampment. With their lighter load and swifter team; they would rapidly gain on him. Before night, surely, they would overtake him. It was all simply a matter of time and patience and perseverance. In the end, they would be successful.

Much to their surprise, the thief chose a different route entirely. Apparently he had no intention of returning to his home and friends with his ill-gained booty. A few miles farther on, he had set his course to the west, following a hill-chain that ran parallel to the Wapiti River.

The boys turned sharply and continued the pursuit. The sledge tracks of the thief could be discerned quite plainly.

“I can’t imagine where he’s going,” mused Dick. “It isn’t to his own home. Where do you suppose, Toma?”

“Mebbe up in the hills somewhere to another encampment. Mebbe him ’fraid to go back to his own people.”

“Or,” guessed the other, “perhaps his purpose is to make a secret cache up there in the hills. He thinks, no doubt, that the mail sacks and medicine chests are filled with valuable provisions. I’d like to see his face when he opens one of them.”

Toma broke into a low chuckle.

“It make me laugh if he try drink medicine an’ get very sick. Mebbe him fool enough to think medicine some new kind of whiskey.”

“God help him, if he does. I don’t know what sort of medicine Dr. Brady may have there. There’s vaccine for smallpox and drugs of all kinds. I’m sure that some of them are deadly poison. He’s apt to be more than sick if he tries it.”

Presently the trail wound into the hills. It went up and up and up, and then down and then up again. It skirted deep ravines and dangerous precipices. It crossed the wide basin of a lake. It continued on—the rutted tracks of that thief’s sledge—with the unbroken insistence of the passing of time itself.

“He’s certainly travelling and no mistake. He must be going almost as fast as we are,” complained Dick. “He’ll kill that team of mine.”

“Don’t you worry, we catch him. Pretty soon we catch him.”

“We will, of course, if we don’t lose his trail. The fool will be compelled to stop soon for something to eat.”

“Sometimes Indians go days without stop for something to eat,” commented Toma.

“Not if he thinks he has a store of precious things aboard,” grinned his companion. “His fingers will be itching to get at those sacks. He’ll want to explore the mystery of those medicine chests.”

Again Toma chuckled.

“This mail all same like ’em paper?” he inquired.

“It is paper,” replied Dick. “Envelopes, hundreds of envelopes, bulging with paper. Then, in the second-class mail pouches, there’ll be circulars and catalogs and newspapers, hundreds of pounds altogether to tempt his mounting appetite. I think he’ll relish the stamps too. They’ll be green and red, with a picture of King George on one side and mucilage on the other. The mucilage has a sweet, toothsome taste he’ll like.”

Toma doubled up in a paroxysm of laughter.

“I think that very good joke on that Indian. Mebbe him find out it bad thing to steal.”

“I don’t know about that. He looks as if he were beyond redemption.”

Toma cracked his whip, and the huskies sprang forward, scrambling up an incline. It was steep here, so Dick got out and trotted behind. The exercise warmed his feet and sent the blood racing through his body.

When he tumbled back on the sledge again, Toma half-turned and with the butt of his whip pointed excitedly at the dogs.

“Look!” he cried.

The sudden change in the behavior of the huskies was very noticeable. Their ears were pricked higher. The leader, a beautiful long-haired malemute, so much resembling a wolf that it was almost impossible to tell the difference, had commenced to whine softly, straining at her harness in fitful, nervous leaps.

“Somebody close ahead,” Toma whispered. “We see ’em pretty quick now.”

Dick leaned forward and picked up his rifle, and commenced fumbling with the breech. His expression had grown suddenly tense. He rose to a position on his knees, swaying there from the motion of the sleigh, his gaze set unwaveringly, expectantly, on the trail ahead.

At a furious rate of speed, they descended another slope, then, more slowly, began circling up around the next hill, emerging to a sparsely wooded area, which, in turn, at the farther side, dropped abruptly to a deep tree-covered valley.

Abruptly, the boys turned toward each other. Toma muttered something under his breath; Dick relaxed to a sitting position, whistling his astonishment.

“I didn’t expect anything like this,” remarked Dick, recovering somewhat from his surprise. “An Indian village! Look, Toma, there are scores of tepees down there. No wonder he came this way.”

Again they started—but not at the sight of those tepees, strung along the floor of the valley, nor yet at the sight of the Indians themselves, here and there plainly distinguishable—but at the appearance of a loaded sledge behind a team of gray malemutes, proceeding quickly toward the village.

“He isn’t very far ahead of us,” exulted Dick. “He’ll soon be cornered. He can’t get away. We’ve won, Toma.”

Toma’s eyes were shining.

“Him big fool to come here. What you think?”

“He may have friends. Perhaps they’ll want to shield him.”

The young Indian’s answer was to crack his whip and to shout to the huskies. The sledge leaped forward. It threw up a quantity of loose snow, through which it plowed. It rocked perilously as it negotiated the top of the valley slope, then, in spite of Dick’s foot pressed hard on the brake-board, shot down, almost running over the dogs.

Taking a steeper but more direct route to the village than had been attempted by the thief, they were only a few yards behind him when they made their final whirlwind spurt through the orderly row of tepees and the gaping crowds, and came to a jarring but dramatic halt.

The thief was unaware of his danger, had not even a premonition of the near presence of his pursuers, until, with a certain amusing dignity, he slipped from the top of his precious load and waved an exaggerated greeting to the crowd.

His triumph was short-lived. Out of the corner of one eye, he saw two figures who looked strangely familiar. In order to make sure, he turned his head and in that moment his self-confidence poured from him like water out of a bucket.

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