“Whale skin and blubber,” the judge informed him. “The white part is blubber, and the dark is hide.”
Jerry gagged momentarily, swallowed his last mouthful, then smiled manfully. “I wish you hadn’t said that, sir,” he declared. “But it still tastes good.”
“You ready now?” Charley asked the boys. “Time for race soon.”
They shook hands with the official and followed Charley over to the starting line, where the teams were lining up.
There were eight entries altogether. The dogs were prancing about restlessly in their harnesses like proud race horses, their curved tails waving over their backs. They were charged with excitement and seemed eager to get started. The huskies on opposing teams eyed each other sullenly, baring their long fangs and growling deep in their throats. Occasionally, one would dart out of line and snap at another dog, but there were no fights. Black Titan, like the good lead dog he was, watched his team closely, and whenever one of them became too frisky and pugnacious, he would bark a sharp command. Immediately, the offender would drop his ears and quiet down.
“They act almost human,” Sandy said.
“I’ll say,” Jerry agreed. “That Titan reminds me of Mr. Hall, my math teacher. No horseplay when he’s around.”
Charley helped the boys arrange themselves in the sled, Sandy in back, with Jerry in front of him, sitting between his legs. “Just like on a toboggan,” Sandy observed. They tucked the big robe that covered them around their sides as Charley took his place behind the sled and gripped the handles.
The sharp crack of the starter’s pistol split the crisp air and Charley’s bellowing “Mush! Yea, huskies, mush!” almost split Sandy’s eardrums. The figures lined up on both sides of them blurred rapidly as the sled picked up speed, and wind and snow whipped into their faces. Gripping the handles tightly, Charley matched the pace of the team effortlessly with his long strides.
“He’s not going to run all the way, is he?” Jerry yelled to Sandy.
“I guess he wants to give the team the best of it this early in the race. He’ll hop on when he gets winded.”
But a half hour went by and still the driver’s boots pounded behind them in unbroken rhythm. At first the seven teams were bunched pretty close together on the hard-packed trail, then gradually the distance between them widened. Sandy kept glancing back as Charley urged their sled into the lead and finally lost sight of the nearest team as they rounded a hummock and entered a stretch of forest.
“If we keep this pace up, we’ll be in Skagway in time for lunch,” Jerry said.
The big Indian reined in the dogs when they reached a spot where three separate narrower paths forked off the main trail.
“Which way do we go?” Sandy called to him.
Still breathing as easily as if he had taken a short walk around the block, Charley answered, “All go to Skagway. We take middle trail. More snow, but less up and down.” Having made up his mind, Charley shouted to the dogs: “Mush! Mush! Mush, huskies!” And they were off again.
A short time later they left the trail and went skimming down a windswept slope that stretched away into a barren icy plain. Now Charley hopped onto the back of the sled and rode like a Roman charioteer, shouting encouragement to the dogs in Indian. Although there was no broken trail, the sled rode solidly on the surface of the old snow crusted over thickly by the 50-below-zero cold.
“This is really living!” Jerry exulted, his voice trailing off eerily in the slipstream behind the sled. At noon they stopped to rest the dogs in the lee of a rock overhang. Sandy broke out a thermos of steaming coffee and sandwiches, and Charley threw the huskies some chunks of lean dry meat.
“How far do you think we’ve come so far?” Jerry asked.
Charley shrugged. “Twenty, maybe twenty-five mile.”
“Say, that’s pretty good.” He looked back in the direction they had come from. “Where do you suppose those other guys are?”
Charley finished his sandwich, rumpled up the wax-paper wrapping and set a match to it, warming his hands over the brief torch it created. He motioned to the west. “Some follow other trail. Maybe a few stay just in back of us. Let us break new trail for them. Then when our dogs tired, they fresh and catch us.” He cupped one hand to his ear. “Listen!”
The boys held their breaths for a minute, straining to hear. They could just make out the sound of barking dogs floating on the wind in the distance.
“He’s right,” Jerry said indignantly. “That’s a sneaky thing to do.”
“No, it’s not,” Sandy disagreed. “No more than a track man letting another runner set the pace.”
“No worry,” Charley assured them. “We win anyway.”
“What a man you are, Charley.” Jerry regarded the big Indian with admiration. “We could use you in the fullback spot on the Valley View football team.” He grinned at Sandy. “I bet he could walk down the field with both teams on his back.”
Charley squinted up at the sky abruptly. The ceiling seemed even lower and grayer than before. “It snow soon. We better go.”
Sandy looked up too. “How can you tell?”
“I know,” Charley said somberly. “Bad storm on the way.”
“Oh, great!” Jerry said. “What happens if we get caught out in this deep freeze in a blizzard?”
“There are check points every twenty-five miles,” Sandy recalled what the professor had told him. “We must be pretty close to one now, Charley. Think we should stop and get a weather report?”
Charley nodded toward the east. “Two, three miles over that way. On main trail. We go there, we lose race. We stop at next post, at halfway mark. Three hours away maybe.”
“I guess that’s the only thing to do,” Sandy agreed. “Well, let’s get moving.”
Ten minutes later, the snow began to come down, fine granular pellets that stung like sand as the rising wind blasted it into their faces. Visibility was reduced to no more than fifty feet. Even the dogs were slowed down. The snow, mixed with the loose surface fluff of previous falls, piled up quickly in drifts. As it dragged at his boots more and more, Charley began to mutter angrily to himself in Indian.
“I don’t like it, Sandy,” Jerry said uneasily. “We’re never going to make that check point before dark.”
“At this rate we’ll never make it at all,” Sandy retorted. “Listen, Jerry, what do you say we get out and trot along with Charley? It’s bad enough pulling the sled by itself without our weight too.”
“Good idea,” Jerry admitted. “Let’s give the dogs a break.”
Sandy signaled Charley to stop and told him of their plan.
“All right,” Charley agreed. “I go up front and break trail.”
For the next half hour the boys were able to keep up with the sled. But in the ever-deepening snow, their legs grew heavier and heavier. At last, they lost sight of the sled in the swirling flakes. When Jerry slipped and fell, Sandy cupped his hands to his mouth like a megaphone and yelled: “Charley! Char-r-ley! Wait for us.”
Gasping for breath, Jerry struggled up to his hands and knees. “I’ve had it, Sandy,” he gasped. “I can’t go any farther.”
Sandy helped his friend to get up and supported him with one arm. “C’mon, boy, we can make it. As soon as we catch up with the team you can rest awhile in the sled.”
Clutching each other tightly, they staggered forward, trying to follow the tracks of the sled runners. But before they had covered twenty-five feet, the blowing snow had obliterated the trail. Sandy continued on doggedly in the direction he thought the team had taken, dragging Jerry with him. Every few steps he would stop and call: “Char-ley! Char-ley!” But there was no answer—only the moaning of the wind and the hiss of the snow beating against the fabric of their parkas.
Once more Jerry sagged to his knees. “We’re lost, pal,” he muttered. “Look, I’m exhausted. I can’t go a step farther. You go ahead and look for Charley. When you find him, you can come back for me.”
“Don’t be crazy, Jerry. Our best chance is to stick together. If we keep walking, we’re bound to catch up to the team. Once Charley finds we’re gone, he’ll stop and wait for us.”
Jerry’s voice cracked. “I can’t see my hand in front of my face. We don’t even know if we’re going in the right direction.”
While he was speaking, a low, mournful howl drifted to them on the wind from somewhere on their left. Sandy clutched Jerry’s arm. “You hear that?” he said tensely.
Jerry’s voice brightened. “That must be the team. C’mon.” With renewed vigor, he veered off in the direction of the howling.
Sandy grabbed him with both hands. “No, wait! It could be a wolf.”
Jerry stopped dead. “Oh my gosh!” he murmured. “What are we going to do?”
Sandy dusted the snow that had crusted on his eyebrows with the back of one mitten. “I don’t know. I still think we’re heading in the right direction. Let’s go a little farther. If we don’t find Charley and the team soon, we can always head over that way.”
The snow was coming down so hard now that every breath was an effort. Sandy felt as if he were being smothered in a sea of white cotton. He stopped as the howling broke out again, in a chorus this time.
“Maybe you’re right,” he said to Jerry. “That sure sounds like a bunch of dogs.”
“Yeah, let’s give it a try, anyhow,” Jerry pressed.
They were just about to veer off in the direction of the howling when they heard a familiar harsh rumbling directly in front of them. It was the unmistakable growl of a husky.
“Charley!” Sandy called out. “Titan! Black Titan!”
A succession of sharp yelps knifed through the storm. “That’s the team all right!” Jerry cried.
Miraculously, their legs seemed to find new strength, and they practically ran the rest of the way through the knee-deep snow. Directly ahead of them, the sled loomed out of the darkness. The dogs, in harness, were seated on their haunches or huddled low in drifts to escape the force of the wind. But Charley was nowhere to be seen.
Jerry sagged against the back of the sled. “Oh my gosh! What happened to him?”
“He must have doubled back to look for us and we didn’t see him in the storm.” Night had deepened the blinding downfall even more.
There was a tremor in Jerry’s voice. “You don’t think the wolves got him, Sandy?”
“No, they rarely attack a man. Especially with the dogs here. Besides, Charley had a rifle.” He rummaged through the packs on the front of the sled. “It’s not here, so he must have taken it with him.”
“What do we do now?” Jerry wanted to know. “Go back and try to find Charley?”
“That’s the worst thing we could do,” Sandy said emphatically. “We’d get lost but good. No, the best thing to do is to wait here until Charley gets back.”
Jerry was skeptical. “I’m not sure even an old woodsman like Charley can find his way back in this soup.”
“Maybe if we shout to him he’ll hear us,” Sandy suggested.
For the next ten minutes the boys pitted their voices against the intensity of the raging storm. But even in their own ears their shouts sounded pitifully weak. At last they gave it up.
“It’s no use,” Sandy said hoarsely. “We’ll just have to wait.” He crouched down in the lee of the sled.
What seemed like hours passed and still there was no sign of Charley. The boys could feel the cold seeping through their heavy clothing and stiffening their limbs. They were both badly frightened now.
“Sandy,” Jerry pleaded, “we just can’t sit here and do nothing. We’ll freeze to death. My nose and cheeks are numb now.”
Sandy fought back the panic that was rising in him too. “If we don’t lose our heads, we’ll be okay, Jerry. The way it looks now, we’re going to have to spend the night here. Tomorrow, they’ll have search parties out looking for us. I bet the rest of the contestants are in the same boat we are.”
“We’ll be stiff as washboards by then,” Jerry prophesied. “Frozen wolf food.”
“Don’t be a nut,” Sandy snapped. “Now get up and help me rig up a lean-to.”
“A lean-to?” Jerry said wonderingly. “What kind of a lean-to?”
“The kind Charley says the Eskimos build on the trail. They fasten a big hide to the side of the sled that’s out of the wind and peg the other side down to the ice, or weight it down. The snow piles up against the far side of the sled, forming a solid windbreak, and you have yourself a cozy little tent.”
“We don’t have any hides,” Jerry said.
“We have that big rug in the sled. C’mon, let’s get to work.”
While Sandy fastened the robe to the top of the sled’s guard rail, Jerry weighted the far side down with a pair of snowshoes he found in the sled and heaped up snow on top of the shoes until they weighted down the robe securely. When they were finished, Sandy scooped the excess snow out from beneath the robe and they had a small lean-to with just enough room in it to shelter two people.
“Well, that’s that,” Sandy said with satisfaction, brushing off his mittens. “Now I’ll unhitch the dogs while you get our supper ready.”
The erection of the lean-to had renewed Jerry’s confidence. “What’ll you have?” he inquired flippantly. “Roast turkey with chestnut stuffing or a thick steak smothered with onions and a side of French fries?”
Sandy played the game with him. “No, I’m getting sick of that goppy stuff. How about a couple of frozen sandwiches and a thermos of cold coffee?”
“Just what I had in mind,” Jerry called to him as he rummaged through the packs on the sled. “Are we going to feed the huskies?”
“Sure, get out some of that meat Charley keeps in that big tin can up front.”
The dogs seemed overjoyed to see Sandy. They leaped about him, wagging their tails furiously and barking and whining.
“I bet you guys are hungry,” Sandy spoke to them. “Keep calm. Your dinner’s coming right up.”
When he knelt beside Black Titan to remove his harness, the big lead dog jockeyed obediently into the proper position. As soon as he was free, he nuzzled affectionately against the boy’s cheek. “Hey!” Sandy laughed. “That is the coldest nose I ever felt in my life.” He ruffled up the thick fur around the husky’s throat with his fingers, and was surprised to feel the soothing warmth deep down in the animal’s undercoat. “Boy, I wish I had your fur, Titan. No wonder you can sleep in a snow foxhole.” He pressed both hands against Titan’s body gratefully. “That feels good, old boy.”
Jerry came up behind him with the can of dog meat. “And look what else I found.” He held out a bulky .45 Colt automatic. “It’s fully loaded, too.”
The sight of the lethal-looking pistol was reassuring. “Dad must have given it to Charley before we left,” Sandy reasoned. “He asked me if I wanted to take a gun along, but I knew Charley had his rifle, so I didn’t bother. It’s a good thing we have it. Now maybe we can signal to Charley. Fire a few shots in the air to let him know where we are.”
“Good idea,” Jerry agreed. “And I’ve got an even better one.”
“What’s that?”
“Let’s send old Titan out to find his buddy. Bet you he can do it.”
Sandy was pessimistic. “I don’t know if he could pick up Charley’s trail in a storm like this, but we can give it a try.”
While the dogs were gulping down their food, the boys rummaged through Charley’s gear until they found a heavy wool shirt that the Indian had recently worn. When Black Titan had finished eating, Sandy held the shirt under his nose.
“Charley, Charley,” he kept repeating. “Go find Charley, Titan.” He slapped the husky on the rump. “Go on, Titan!”
Titan began to whine as he sniffed at the shirt. Then he trotted off into the blizzard with his head down. When he had disappeared from sight, Jerry turned to Sandy. “Well, what do we do now?”
“Eat supper and climb into our sleeping bags, I guess. But first I want to fire a couple of shots to see if we can signal Charley.”
He took out the heavy automatic and levered a shell into the firing chamber. Pointing it up in the air, he pulled the trigger. The muzzle flash lit up the night briefly like lightning, but the shot was muffled by the wind and thick curtain of snow. The dogs milled around nervously and began to bark. Sandy fired one more shot, then shoved the gun back in the pocket of his parka.
“I bet those shots didn’t carry over five hundred feet. I feel as though we’re inside a vacuum. I don’t want to waste any more shells until this gale lets up a little. C’mon, let’s sack in for the night.”
They gathered up the sandwiches, coffee thermos, Coleman stove and sleeping bags and crawled into the lean-to. The blowing snow had sealed up all the cracks and even the openings at either end of the makeshift shelter. Sandy burrowed through a drift at the rear of the sled to form an entranceway.
“This back end gets less wind,” he explained to Jerry.
The interior of the lean-to was cramped, but seated with their backs resting against the sides of the sled and their legs crossed in front of them, they were not too uncomfortable. Sandy pumped up the pressure in the one-burner gasoline stove and lit it. He turned the wick up abnormally high until the pale-blue flame became streaked with yellow and began to smoke slightly. Although this was a waste of fuel and reduced the cooking efficiency of the stove, it provided more light and warmth.
“Say, this is all right,” Jerry said, grinning. “It reminds me of the time we went on a Boy Scout camping trip and slept in pup tents.”
Sandy grinned. “The only difference was we were only a ten-minute walk away from home and there was a hot-dog stand across the road from the bivouac area.” He took a half-frozen sandwich out of the knapsack and passed it to Jerry. “Be careful you don’t break your teeth when you bite into it.”
“Thanks, pal.” Jerry filled two aluminum canteen cups from the coffee thermos and sipped from one. “It’s lukewarm, anyway,” he commented.
“I’ve got an idea,” Sandy said. “We can heat the cups on the stove and sit the sandwiches on top of the cup. That way the steam will thaw out the bread.”
“Brilliant. If it wasn’t so cold, I’d take my hat off to you.”
Ten minutes later, they were munching hungrily on a relatively decent meal. Jerry inhaled the steam that was rising from his canteen cup and sighed contentedly. “I know it must be my imagination, but right now I’d say this is the best-tasting chow I ever ate.”
Sandy laughed and nodded. “We used to say the same thing about the mickeys we roasted in the corner lot when we were kids. All black with ashes and dirt, but boy, they sure did taste good.” He lowered the wick a little on the stove. “It’s probably the hot coffee, but I’m beginning to get warm in here.”
“What’s wrong with being warm?” Jerry protested. “Turn it up as high as it will go.”
Sandy frowned. “When you live in frigid temperatures it’s safer to feel a little cold than it is to be overheated, because when you cool off, the perspiration will turn to ice on your skin.”
“Perspiration!” Jerry gawked incredulously. “Are you kidding?”
“Well, we’re not going to take any chances. As soon as we’re finished eating, I’m going to turn off the stove altogether.”
“Not until I’m snug in my bedroll,” Jerry begged.
Sandy looked worried. “Poor Charley. He’s not going to be very snug tonight. No bedroll, no food. Gee, I wish I knew what happened to him.”
“What makes it worse,” Jerry said gloomily, “is that it’s our fault. If we hadn’t dragged so far behind, he wouldn’t have had to go looking for us.”
The boys finished their sandwiches and coffee in subdued silence, staring out into the stormy night through the diminishing black hole of the entranceway.
“You know,” Sandy said suddenly, “in another hour we’ll be snowed in tight inside this lean-to.”
Jerry surveyed the drifting snow anxiously. “You’re right. Like a tomb. We’ll be able to get out, though, won’t we?”
Sandy reached over and enlarged the opening with one hand. “Oh, yes. It’s as light as powder.”
After they had finished eating and wrapped up the garbage, they prepared to bed down for the night. “We’d better do this one at a time,” Sandy suggested. “We’d only be in each other’s way moving around in here together. I’ll go outside until you’re all settled. You lie with your head up at the front of the sled. I’ll lie the opposite way. That way we’ll have more room.”
Crawling on hands and knees, Sandy pushed through the drift that was blocking up the opening. A furious blast of bitter cold wind took his breath away as he got to his feet and sent him reeling back from the sled. It was even warmer inside the lean-to than he had realized. He recalled that Tagish Charley had a powerful flashlight in his gear and walked through knee-high snow to the front of the sled to look for it. It would be wise to keep it handy in the lean-to, he decided. He found the light easily and turned it on to see how the dogs were making out. They were all huddled together behind the windbreak of the sled, growling and shifting around restlessly. As the flash beam swept over them, a few cringed and bared their fangs. Their behavior distressed Sandy, who had expected that by now they would all be cozily balled up in holes and snoring peacefully. He skirted around them and walked back to consult with Jerry. Beaming the light on the lean-to, he saw that the snow was mounding it over like an igloo. Once more he had to dig the snow away from the entrance before he could get in.
When he crawled inside, he saw that Jerry was stretched out in his sleeping bag, the hooded cover zipped up tightly around his head. Only his eyes, nose and mouth were showing.
“How’s the weather outside?” he asked Sandy.
Sandy shook the snow off his hood. “Same as before. Terrible. The dogs are acting up, too. I’m worried.”
“Maybe they’re cold.”
“I don’t think so. They act frightened.”
“Me too. We’re snowbound in the Yukon. Charley’s missing, probably frozen to death in a snowdrift. Our food is about gone. What a mess! I’m scared plenty.”
At that moment a long, mournful animal howl rose clearly above the intensity of the wind. Before it trailed off, another howl and still another joined it, forming an eerie chorus.
Jerry snapped upright like a jack-in-the-box, his face drained of blood. “Wolves!”
“And close by,” Sandy said grimly.
Outside, the dogs were really setting up an uproar now, snarling and barking frantically.
Despite the seriousness of the situation, Sandy had to smile as he watched his friend struggling to get out of the sleeping bag. In his excitement, Jerry couldn’t work the zipper. “Get me out of this strait jacket!” he yelled.
“Take it easy,” Sandy said. “In that bag you look like a big fat hot dog with a face.”
“Not so loud,” Jerry cautioned him. “The wolves might hear you. Just hurry and get me out of here.”
Between them they finally got the sleeping bag unzipped, and Jerry rolled out. Sandy took the Army .45 out of his pocket and checked the clip. There were still four shells in it.
“Do we have any more ammunition for that cannon?” Jerry asked anxiously.
“Probably up front in Charley’s gear. I’m going up to get it.”
“I’m going with you,” Jerry said promptly. “One of those wolves might poke his snout in here while you’re gone.”
They scrambled out into the blizzard and stood up. Sandy switched on the flashlight and swept it in a wide circle about them. The powerful beam seemed to run into a solid wall of white no more than fifty feet away. He turned it on the dogs, who were setting up such a loud racket that it drowned out the howling of the wolves. The huskies were all on their feet now, standing stiff-legged with their tails curled tightly beneath their bellies. Their lips were drawn back over their teeth, and the thick fur around their necks bristled like porcupine quills. Sandy swung the light in the direction of their gaze, and felt his heart flip and miss a beat. Glowing greenishly through the falling flakes was a circle of eyes. They were there for just an instant and then faded back out of range of the beam.
Jerry gripped Sandy’s arm tightly. “There must be a whole pack of ’em. They’re just waiting for us to fall asleep and then they’ll jump us.”
One of the huskies began to slink forward toward the wolves, his belly flattened close to the ground.
“Come back here, boy!” Sandy shouted. “They’ll tear him to pieces,” he muttered to Jerry. He cocked the automatic and aimed in the direction of the glowing eyes. “I hate to waste ammo like this, but maybe we can scare them off.”
He fired three shots. The last shot was answered by a sharp yelp of pain.
“You got one!” Jerry yelled excitedly.
“Shh! Listen!” Sandy said. Above the wailing of the storm they could hear wild snarling and yelping.
“Sounds like they’re fighting among themselves,” Jerry said.
The commotion ended as abruptly as it had begun, and although Sandy kept searching the darkness with the light for a long time, there was no further sign of the wolves. At last, when the dogs quieted down and curled up in burrows, the boys relaxed.
“I guess the shots did scare them off at that,” Sandy decided. “Now let’s find that box of ammo in Charley’s pack, and then we can go back inside and see if we can get some rest.”
“Sleep?” Jerry said. “Are you kidding? Suppose they come back again?”
“The dogs will warn us if they do.”
Jerry shivered. “Okay. But I’ll take the bed next to the wall, just in case.”
The snow had completely blocked the entrance, and they had to shovel energetically to clear it. “Man, it’s really warm in here,” Jerry said as he crawled into the lean-to.
The snow wall that had built up at the other end of the lean-to and on the sled side was smooth and glistening. “Just like an igloo,” Sandy said. As soon as they were inside their sleeping bags, he turned off the Coleman stove.
Jerry sighed as the little hut was plunged into pitch-darkness. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think I was back in my little trundle bed in Valley View.”
“Go to sleep,” Sandy grunted. He was facing the entrance and the automatic was within easy reach in his side pocket. In an emergency, he knew he could fire right through the sleeping bag.
Gradually, his eyes became accustomed to the darkness and he could make out the faint outline of the round doorway. His eyelids grew heavier and the hole grew smaller and smaller. Then he dropped off to sleep.
When Sandy awoke, it was still pitch-dark inside the lean-to. He was about to roll over and go back to sleep, but he decided to see what time it was first. He pulled down the zipper of his sleeping bag, fumbled for the flashlight and flicked the switch.
The sudden burst of light woke up Jerry. “Whazza matter?” he mumbled.
“Go back to sleep,” Sandy told him. “It’s still the middle of the night.” He turned the spot on his wrist watch. “What the—” he exclaimed, and sat up, startled. He squinted at the dial again, but there was no mistake. It said 7:30. “That’s impossible! It must have stopped!” But he held it up to his ear and heard the steady, rhythmic ticking.
“What’s the matter with you?” Jerry, fully awake now, propped himself up on one elbow.
Suddenly, Sandy began to laugh. “Oh, I get it. We’re snowed in.” He explained to Jerry. “My watch said it was half past seven, but I couldn’t believe it because it was so dark in here. It’s the snow; it’s blocking out the daylight.”
“It’s really morning?” Jerry said doubtfully. “Well, let’s go out and find out.” He unzippered his sleeping bag.
Propping the torch up in the snow, Sandy tried to push his head and shoulders through the drift that blocked the entrance. It was like running into a stone wall. “Ouch!” he cried. He dug at the snow with his fingers, but his mittens slid futilely off a surface that was as smooth as a skating rink.
“Well, come on,” Jerry said impatiently. “Let’s go.”
“Door’s frozen up,” Sandy told him. He sat down and tried to kick through the ice with his feet, but couldn’t dent it. He turned to Jerry. “Try your end. This one is plugged up solid.”
“So is this end,” Jerry reported, after pounding away with his hands and feet for several minutes. “So, we’ll go out the side.” He grabbed one corner of the robe and tugged it loose from where it was anchored under the snow, while Sandy worked on the other corner. Then they pulled it aside, exposing a smooth, glittering expanse of ice behind it.
Sandy tested it with his fist and whistled. “Like iron.”
There was a tremor in Jerry’s voice. “What goes on around here? Maybe I wasn’t kidding last night when I called this thing a tomb.”
“Take it easy,” Sandy soothed. “It’s only snow.”
“Yeah, ice,” Jerry repeated. “You ever see them drive trucks across the ice on frozen lakes? I’ve seen it in newsreels. That ice is pretty rugged stuff.”
“You got a knife?” Sandy asked. “I left mine in the sled.”
“So did I. Say, let’s try to move the sled,” Jerry suggested.
They both shoved and pulled at the sled for a long time, but it seemed welded to the spot. At last, Jerry sank down exhausted. “I don’t get it. What happened?”
Sandy played the light over the walls of the lean-to. “I can guess. Remember how cozy and warm it got in here last night? Between that stove and the heat from our bodies, I bet the temperature in here was a good fifty degrees higher than it was outside. The heat radiates through the snow, causing it to melt partially. Then it freezes up. That’s how the Eskimos harden the walls of their snow houses. They build big bonfires in them.”
“Only they don’t forget to make doors in ’em,” Jerry said grimly. “Another thousand years from now, I can see a couple of geologists like your dad and the professor digging us out. Preserved in a block of ice like that baby mammoth.”
“It’s no joking matter,” Sandy said. “We’ve got to think of a way to break out of here. One thing, though: they’re bound to send out search parties and sooner or later they’ll find the sled.”
“What makes you think so?” Jerry demanded. “The sled is probably covered with snow by now and this must look like any other part of the landscape. And you don’t think those dogs are going to hang around here forever, do you? They’ve probably run off looking for food already.”
Sandy felt his heart begin to race madly. “I never thought of that,” he admitted. “Well, it’s up to us then. What have we got that we can use as a chipping tool?”
“Only thing I can think of that’s metal is the Coleman stove.”
“That’s no good. No sharp edges.”
They were silent for a moment, then Sandy snapped his fingers. “I’ve got it! The gun!” He took the bulky .45 out of his pocket and held it up in the light. “We’ll blast our way out.”
Jerry looked worried. “You know what they say about shooting fish in a rain barrel? Well, if one of those slugs ever ricochets inside here, we’ll be dead fish.”
“It’s our only chance,” Sandy said. He loaded the gun, cocked the hammer and nudged off the safety with his thumb. Holding the gun at arm’s length away from him, he pointed the muzzle at the end where the entrance had been. “Better make sure your hood is pulled tight over your ears,” he advised Jerry.
“I’m all set. Let ’er go.”
Sandy shut his eyes and tightened his finger on the trigger. The explosion reverberated like a bomb in the small lean-to. Sandy felt the shock wave slam into his face, and the recoil almost tore the gun out of his hand. He sat there stunned for a while.
Jerry’s voice screaming in his ear brought him out of it. “Sandy, it worked!”
He opened his eyes to the most wonderful sight he had ever seen. A beam of sunlight was pouring through an opening in the ice wall. The potent, snub-nosed .45 slug had blasted a hole almost four inches in diameter. In the light of the flashlight, he also observed that the ice around the hole was shattered and veined from the shock wave.
Dropping the gun back into his pocket, Sandy got on his knees and began to work on the opening with his hands. Snow and ice crumbled easily, and before long he had enlarged the hole so that he was able to squirm through. Jerry was right behind him. Painfully, they stood up.
“Oh,” Jerry groaned. “I feel like a dog on its hind legs.” Looking up at the clear blue sky, he threw kisses into the air with both hands. “Mr. Sun, I never figured we’d ever see you again.”
It was a perfect, cloudless day without even a breeze. Looking around him, Sandy realized that the high winds of the night before had exaggerated the intensity of the blizzard. Except where it had drifted around the sled and lean-to, no more than twelve inches of new snow had fallen. He discovered, too, that they had been traveling along the ridge of a low hill and had stopped on the most exposed spot in all the surrounding terrain. On either side, the ground sloped away gently into protected valleys thick with fir trees.
After spending hours shut up in the gloom of the lean-to, the boys found the sunlight on the snow blinding. They dug their smoked glasses out of their packs and put them on. The dogs crowded around them, yelping and wagging their tails.
“I guess they’re hungry,” Sandy said. “Is there any meat left?”
“A little,” Jerry said. He went to get the can of food from the front of the sled. As he threw the last chunks of raw horse meat to the huskies, he eyed it forlornly. “I’m so hungry I could eat it myself.”
Sandy grinned. “Even some of thatmuk-tukwould look good to me now.”
“Are the sandwiches all gone?”
“We finished them last night.”
They had just finished feeding the dogs when a faint “Ha-lo-oo-oo...” floated through the still air. On a distant ridge the figure of a man and a dog were silhouetted against the sky.
“It’s Charley and Titan!” the boys yelled in unison. They began to leap up and down, waving their arms and screaming, “Charley! Over here!”
Less than a quarter of an hour later, the Indian came plowing up the hill with Black Titan floundering behind him. They hugged him joyfully and pounded his back, and even Charley was grinning from ear to ear. He listened solemnly while they related their harrowing experiences with the wolves and how they had been trapped in the lean-to.
Charley had had a pretty bad time of it himself. He admitted that, for the first time in his life, he had lost his way when he went back to look for the boys, and had somehow mistaken east for west. Confused and blinded by the shifting gale winds and whipping snow, he had wandered off to an adjacent ridge. After walking around for hours, he had become exhausted—he had been tired out by running twenty-five miles behind the sled to start with—and erected a lean-to in a clump of thick pine trees in the sheltered valley. He had built a big fire and had fallen asleep beside it almost immediately. The next thing he knew, Black Titan was licking his face and the first streaks of dawn were filtering through the pine branches overhead. He had been searching for the boys when he heard the gunshot.
Using the snowshoes as shovels, the three of them dug the sled out of the snow bank. The intense heat of the sun softened the hard upper crust and melted the ice that had formed around the runners. Then Charley hitched up the dogs and headed for the nearest check point, which was only a few miles away.
Their arrival created quite a bit of excitement. “Only one other sled has come through here,” a worried official told them. “The Mounties have planes and search parties out looking for the others.”
“We saw one of the planes,” Sandy said. “He dipped his wings and we waved to him. So he knew we were all right.”
“Actually, though,” the official went on, “the storm looked worse last night than it was. Those winds were gale force. I don’t imagine anyone was really in serious trouble. They’re all experienced woodsmen, accustomed to roughing it on the trail.”
Jerry hooked his thumbs inside his belt and puffed out his chest. “Sure, it was a breeze.”
Tagish Charley was more interested in the sled that had passed through the check point that morning. The official said the other driver had about one hour’s start on them.
“We catch ’im,” Charley said. “Let’s go.”
“Hey!” Jerry complained. “What about breakfast? I’m so ravenous, I’m liable to take a bite out of one of the dogs.”
“No time to eat,” the Indian said. “We have to win race.”
“We’ll give you some sandwiches and hot coffee to take along,” the official promised. “You can eat on the run.”
Jerry stared wistfully at the platters of flapjacks, juicy Canadian bacon and hot biscuits on the stove. “If we come out of this alive, I’ll never look at a cold sandwich again,” he vowed.
A short time later, they were racing down the trail. It was a good day, and by nightfall they had covered another forty-five miles and overtaken the sled ahead of them. Its driver turned out to be a young uranium prospector. For five years he and his brother had been competing in the big race. Two years before, they had come in first and they were hoping to repeat this year. They were pleasant young men and spent the night with Charley and the boys at the last check point on the route.
That night, after a hearty supper, they sat around the fire talking to Sandy and Jerry. Tagish Charley went to bed as soon as he had the team fed and settled in the barn. About nine o’clock, another sled arrived at the check point, and the driver reported that still another team was camped at the side of the trail about an hour’s ride away.