“I wonder where they are?” he muttered. “Ah! of course,” as an afterthought, “they are out at their traps. They might have stoked the fire. It’s perishing in here. I feel beastly queer; must be the effects of starvation.”
Then he moved a step forward. He brought up suddenly to a standstill. His two hands went to his waist. They moved, groping round it spasmodically. Undoing his clothes he passed his hand into his shirt. Then one word escaped him. One word––almost a whisper––but conveying such a world of fierce, horror-stricken intensity––
“Robbed!”
And the look which accompanied his exclamation was the look of a man whose mind is distracted.
So he stood for some seconds. His lips moved, but no words escaped them. His hand remained within his shirt, and his fingers continued to grope about mechanically. And all the time the dazed, strained look burned in his great, roving eyes.
It was gone. That broad belt, weighted down with the result of one year’s toil, gold dust and nuggets, was gone. Presently he seated himself on the cold iron of the stove. Thus he sat for an hour, looking 14 straight before him with eyes that seemed to draw closer together, so intense was their gaze. And who shall say what thoughts he thought; what wild schemes of revenge he planned? There was no outward sign. Just those silent moving lips.
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CHAPTER II
MR. ZACHARY SMITH
“Rot, man, rot! I’ve been up here long enough to know my way about this devil’s country. No confounded neche can teach me. The trail forked at that bush we passed three days back. We’re all right. I wish I felt as sure about the weather.”
Leslie Grey broke off abruptly. His tone was resentful, as well as dictatorial. He was never what one might call an easy man. He was always headstrong, and never failed to resent interference on the smallest provocation. Perhaps these things were in the nature of his calling. He was one of the head Customs officials on the Canadian side of the Alaskan boundary. His companion was a subordinate.
The latter was a man of medium height, and from the little that could be seen of his face between the high folds of the storm-collar of his buffalo coat, he possessed a long nose and a pair of dark, keen, yet merry eyes. His name was Robb Chillingwood. The two men were tramping along on snow-shoes in the rear of a dog-train. An Indian was keeping pace with the dogs in front; the latter, five in number, harnessed in the usual tandem fashion to a heavily-laden sled.
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“It’s no use anticipating bad weather,” replied Chillingwood, quietly. “But as to the question of the trail–––”
“There’s no question,” interrupted Grey, sharply.
“Ah, the map shows two clumps of bush. The trail turns off at one of them. My chart says the second. I studied it carefully. The ‘confounded neche,’ as you call him, says ‘not yet.’ Which means that he considers it to be the second bush. You say no.”
“The neche only knows the trail by repute. You have never been over it before. I have travelled it six times. You make me tired. Give it a rest. Perhaps you can make something of those nasty, sharp puffs of wind which keep lifting the ground snow at intervals.”
Robb shrugged his fur-coated shoulders, and glanced up at the sun. It seemed to be struggling hard to pierce a grey haze which hung over the mountains. The sundogs, too, could be seen, but, like the sun itself, they were dim and glowed rather than shone. That patchy wind, so well known in the west of Canada, was very evident just then. It seemed to hit the snow-bound earth, slither viciously along the surface, sweep up a thin cloud of loose surface snow, then drop in an instant, but only to operate in the same manner at some other spot. This was going on spasmodically in many directions, the snow brushing up in hissing eddies at each attack. And slowly the grey mist on the hills was obscuring the sun.
Robb Chillingwood was a man of some experience on the prairie, although, as his companion had said, he was new to this particular mountain trail. To his trained eye the outlook was not encouraging.
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“Storm,” he observed shortly.
“That’s my opinion,” said Grey definitely.
“According to calculations, if we have not got off the trail,” Chillingwood went on, with a sly look at his superior, “we should reach Dougal’s roadside hostelry in the Pass by eight o’clock––well before dark. We ought to escape the storm.”
“You mean we shall,” said Grey pointedly.
“If––”
“Bunkum!”
The two men relapsed into silence. They were very good friends these two. Both were used to the strenuous northern winter. Both understood the dangers of a blizzard. Their argument about the trail they were on was quite a friendly one. It was only the dictatorial manner of Leslie Grey which gave it the appearance of a quarrel. Chillingwood understood him, and took no notice of his somewhat irascible remarks, whilst, for himself, he remained of opinion that he had read his Ordnance chart aright.
They tramped on. Each man, with a common thought, was watching the weather indications. As the time passed the wind “patches” grew in size, in force, and in frequency of recurrence. The haze upon the surrounding hills rapidly deepened, and the air was full of frost particles. A storm was coming on apace. Nor was Dougal’s wayside hostelry within sight.
“It’s a rotten life on the boundary,” said Robb, as though continuing a thought aloud.
“It’s not so much the life,” replied Grey vindictively, “it’s the d–––d red tape that demands the half-yearly journey down country. That’s the dog’s part 18 of our business. Why can’t they establish a branch bank up here for the bullion and send all ‘returns’ by mail? There is a postal service––of a kind. It’s a one-horsed lay out––Government work. There’ll come a rush to the Yukon valley this year, and when there’s a chance of doing something for ourselves––having done all we can for the Government––I suppose they’ll shift us. It’s the way of Governments. I’m sick of it. I draw four thousand dollars a year, and I earn every cent of it. You––”
“Draw one thousand, and think myself lucky if I taste fresh vegetables once a week during the summer. Say, Leslie, do you think it’s possible to assimilate the humble but useful hog by means of a steady diet of ‘sour-belly’?”
Grey laughed.
“If that were possible I guess we ought to make the primest bacon. Hallo, here comes the d–––d neche. What’s up now, I wonder? Well, Rainy-Moon, what is it?”
The Indian had stopped his dogs and now turned back to speak to the two men. His face was expressionless. He was a tall specimen of the Cree Indian.
“Ugh,” he grunted, as he came to a standstill. Then he stretched out his arm with a wide sweep in the direction of the mountains. “No good, white-men––coyote, yes. So,” and he pointed to the south and made a motion of running, “yes. Plenty beef, plenty fire-water. White-man store.” His face slowly expanded into a smile. Then the smile died out suddenly and he turned to the north and made a long ‘soo-o-o-sh’ with rising intonation, signifying the rising wind. “Him very bad. White-man sleep––sleep. 19 Wake––no.” And he