“What’s up, Jack? What’s the trouble?” “It’s something over by the fox cages.” Jack’s voice was vibrant with anxiety. As for Tom, he was up in a jiffy. In the cages, as has been mentioned, were some half dozen silver foxes and one black one. In all, about seventy-five hundred dollars’ worth of pelts “on the hoof,” as it were, were confined in the big wooden cribs.
That night before they had turned in, Tom and Jack, leaving Sandy in his bunk recuperating from his ducking of the afternoon, had visited the cages and fed their valuable charges with the fish which formed their main article of diet.
“It is really like being left as watchmen in a bank,” Tom had laughingly remarked as they saw to it that all was secure for the night.
“Well, I don’t think it is likely that anyone would care to tackle valuables like these foxes,” Jack had rejoined, as the animals sprang snapping and snarling viciously at the fish, “that is, unless they were like the Spartan boy in the old reader come to life again.”
“I’m not so sure about that,” had been Tom’s grave reply. “Before Uncle Dacre and Mr. Chillingworth left, they warned me to be constantly on the lookout for trouble, and to spare no pains in watching the foxes at every possible opportunity.”
“But who in the world can they be afraid of up here in this desolate, uninhabited part of the world?” Jack had asked, gazing about at the solitary, snow-covered slopes, the drooping balsams and the long stretch of empty, frozen valley.
“As for its being uninhabited, I’m not so sure of that,” Tom had replied. “You remember those two miners 'way back in the hills where we thought no human being had penetrated; and at this time of year, Mr. Chillingworth said the trappers are ranging all through this part of the country.”
“You mean that you imagine they thought there would be danger of somebody bothering our foxes?” Jack had inquired anxiously.
“That is just what I mean,” Tom had said. “Of course they didn’t say so in so many words, but I’ll bet that was what was on their minds. To lots of trappers there’s a fortune right here in these cages.”
This was food for reflection, and Jack had been in a wakeful mood all that night. What the hour was he could not imagine, but a short time before he aroused Tom, he had heard a soft crunching on the snow outside in the direction of the fox cages, followed by a sound as if the pens themselves were being tampered with.
He had leaped from his bunk with a bound and made for his brother’s, Tom being the accepted leader of the Bungalow Boys.
“Close the shutters!” were the first orders Tom gave.
“What for?” Jack could not refrain from asking.
“So that no light can get outside” was Tom’s reply, “while we jump into some clothes and see what’s up.”
The shutters he referred to were used when an unusually heavy wind came up. They were felt lined and excluded every bitter draft. At such times ventilation was obtained from a device in the roof of the cabin. Jack soon had the solid blinds closed and fastened, and then he struck a match and lit the hanging lamp. The next task was to arouse Sandy while they hastily dressed. The Scotch lad was hard to awaken, but at length he sat up blinking and drowsy, and Tom rapidly informed him of what Jack had heard.
“Huh! I’ll bet it was nothing but just a wolverine,” spoke Sandy scornfully.
Wolverines, the gluttons of the northland, had assailed the fox pens quite frequently, being attracted by the odor of fish. In one instance the black fox’s pen had been almost demolished by the steel-clawed, truculent robber of the northern woods.
“Maybe that’s what it was,” said Jack anxiously, inwardly much relieved. As a matter of fact he had not much relished the notion of creeping out into the night upon possible human intruders.
“Well, if it is wolverines, we’ll have a chance to nail them red-handed,” said Tom, “so get a move on and jump into your ‘parkee’.”
Sandy saw from Tom’s face that there was no use delaying any longer and he lost no time in obeying. Then, armed with rifles, having carefully extinguished the light, the boys crept softly out into the night.
It was bitterly cold, but to the north the famous “Lights” flashed and burned against the sky, shedding a softly luminous radiance on the white covering of the earth.
“Ugh!” shivered Jack under his breath, “isn’t it cold, though!”
“Hoot!” grunted Sandy disgustedly, “if it hadna’ been for you and your false alarms, we might ha’ been in our beds the noo’ instead of trapsing around oot here like a lot of gloom-croons.”
“Hush!” breathed Tom impatiently; “what’s the matter with you fellows? Can’t you move quietly?”
“Oh, aye!” rejoined Sandy. “In my opeenion, yon noise was nought but a pack o’ bogles.”
“Then they’re the first ghosts I ever heard of that carried hatchets,” retorted Tom sharply, although in a low whisper. “Hark at that!”
They all paused just within the doorway of the Yukon Rover’s deck-house, into which they had withdrawn, and listened intently.
Over against the hill there could be made out in the faint glow of the Northern Lights a number of dark blotches sharply outlined by their white background. These blotches they knew were the fox cages. In other words, the “safes” containing the four-footed wealth they had been set to guard.
“Can you see anything?” asked Jack under his breath.
“I’m not sure, – just a minute, – yes! Look there!”
“Where?” demanded Jack, his eyes burning and his heart giving a violent thump.
“Right by the last cage.”
“The one that the black fox is in?”
“Yes.”
“By hookey, I do! It’s – it’s – ”
“A man!”
“Holy smoke! What’ll we do now?”
“Get after him, of course. Come on!”
Clutching his rifle in his gloved hands Tom started forward, but before he could move another step he stopped short. From over by the black fox’s cage there came a shot and a blinding flash.
“He’s shooting!” cried Sandy in real alarm.
“Yes, but not at us,” rejoined Tom excitedly, springing forward once more, “it’s the black fox he is after. We’ve got to head him off in that little game.”
CHAPTER IV – THE TRACKS IN THE SNOW
As they ran across the bridge of planks connecting the Yukon Rover with the shore, the boys saw something else. Standing by the cages in such a position that they had not seen it before was a dog-sled.
Even as they were still on the gangway the form of a man glided through the darkness toward the sled. In his arms he held a bundle of some sort.
“Stop where you are!” cried Tom, guessing with a catch at the heart what it was the man was carrying.
There was no reply. The man had reached the sled and bent swiftly over it an instant.
Crack!
Jack gave a jump. The man was not shooting. It was the sharp crack of his dog-whip, sounding like the report of a pistol on the frozen air, that had startled the boy.
The dogs started forward. The sled creaked on the hard, packed snow. It began to glide off through the night like a phantom.
“Stop or we’ll fire!” shouted Jack excitedly.
He raised his rifle but Tom sternly grasped his arm.
“None of that,” ordered the elder Dacre boy sternly.
“But