Marks was well satisfied with his day's work. He had gone to Double Up
Cove for the silver fox pelt, and he had it. He also had the otter pelt.
He had paid a good price for the otter--more than he would have paid
under ordinary circumstances. Still, it would yield him a fair margin of
profit.
He and Toby had been alone when the bargain was struck. Mrs. Twig and
the little maid had retired and were asleep, and in any case could not
have heard the final bargaining or conversation between himself and
Toby. He was assured, also, by the lad's heavy breathing, that Charley
was asleep. There was no witness. It would be his word against Toby's.
He was a trader with an established reputation, Toby was only a boy.
Marks cringed a little when it occurred to him that contracts made with
minors were not binding, if the minor's parents or guardians chose not
to approve them. But this was Labrador, with no court of justice to
which they might appeal. Possession was the point, and Marks grinned
with satisfaction. He had the pelt in his possession.
No doubt, when the silver fox pelt was missed, he would be accused of
having stolen it. When they came to him, he would simply claim that he
had purchased it from Toby, upon a trade basis, and that the price was
five hundred and fifty dollars. He would stand upon this claim. He was
prepared to supply them with goods to this extent of value at any time
they might choose to come to his shop at White Bear Run and select them.
The price he should put on the goods, he assured himself, would be
sufficiently high to render the deal a highly profitable one for him.
Marks had no doubt that he could establish a plausible case. He assured
himself that he had no intention of stealing the pelt. At most, he had
been guilty only of sharp practice. He would pay for it. From the moment
that Aaron Slade had told him about it, he had set his heart upon
possessing it, and, he told himself, he usually got what he wanted.
"I'm a go-getter," he laughed in self-appreciation.
The sun was climbing in the sky, and the reflection from the great white
field of snow covered ice was intense. At this season it is never safe
to travel in the north with the eyes unprotected by goggles fitted with
smoked or orange-tinted glasses. The penalty for neglect might prove a
serious attack of snow-blindness.
Marks felt in a pocket for his goggles. He could not find them. He felt
in another pocket, and repeated the search, but they were not to be
found. Then he remembered that he had laid them on the shelf beside the
clock, at Double Up Cove, at the time he had taken off his adikey the
previous day, and he had no recollection of having removed them from the
shelf.
It was a risk to proceed without them, but there was a very good reason
why he could not safely return to the cabin at Double Up Cove. He felt
that it was to his advantage, until the Twigs had become accustomed to
the loss of the silver fox skin, to place as many miles as he could
between himself and them, and to do it as quickly as possible. Toby was
stubborn, and nobody knew what he might do in his first anger upon
discovering his loss.
"He might even shoot," he mused. "That other fellow didn't like me, and
the two work together. I'll take a chance without glasses, and won't go
back for them."
He turned about on the komatik and looked toward the cabin, his guilty
conscience prompting him to fear that even now he might be followed. The
cabin was still in view, and to his relief he could discover no
activity, and nothing to alarm him.
He urged the dogs forward, and did not halt until he had passed Pinch-In
Tickle, and early in the afternoon had turned into the next bay to the
southward.
Here he found a grove of spruce trees, and with firewood at hand he
stopped and lighted a fire and put his kettle over to boil for luncheon.
When the fire was burning freely, Marks discovered, upon looking into
it, a painful sensation in his eyeballs. The glare of the snow had
affected them. Before he finished eating, the pain had developed
considerably, and he determined to remain where he was until sunset,
when he would proceed to Aaron Slade's cabin, some five miles farther.
Here he could spend the night, and could borrow a pair of goggles, he
was sure, from Aaron. If he kept his eyes closed in the meantime, he
had no doubt they would be much improved when evening came.
Snapping his long whip over the dogs, he compelled them to lie down. The
big gray dog was slow to obey, and Marks laid the lash upon him two or
three times to enforce authority.
The dogs quieted, he dropped the whip in the snow at the rear of the
komatik, and within reach, and breaking some boughs arranged them to
form a comfortable couch near the fire. He then unlashed his sleeping
bag from the top of the load on his komatik, spread it upon the boughs
and crawled into it.
Marks fell asleep. When he awoke it was nearing sunset, and time to
drive on to Aaron Slade's. But he could only open his eyes to a narrow
slit, and that for a moment, when they would close. The pain was
excruciating. Marks was snowblind.
It was near feeding time, and the dogs were on their feet and restless.
If he could get them started, perhaps they would carry him unguided to
Slade's. At any rate, he determined to try, for he could not remain
where he was.
With much fumbling and groping he succeeded fairly well in securing his
load. He felt for his whip, and found it on the snow at the rear of the
komatik, where he had dropped it after compelling the dogs to lie down.
The restless dogs had swung around in their traces, and were facing him.
Through some mysterious instinct they appeared to have sensed the fact
that there was something wrong with Marks. When he ordered them forward,
and snapped the whip over them in an effort to straighten them out in
the direction in which he wished to go, they replied with snarls, and
refused to obey. Their open defiance of his authority sent Marks into a
rage. He tried to lash them, but in his blinded condition his aim was
poor and his efforts ineffectual.
His anger rose to white heat. If he could not lash them, he could at
least beat them into submission, at close quarters, with the clubbed
handle of the whip. With a volley of curses, he flew at them blindly,
beating right and left, and bringing whines of pain from the unfortunate
dogs that he chanced to strike.
Still they did not move into position. In painful peeps that he had
through narrow eye slits he saw the big gray dog facing him and snarling
at him with a show of its ugly fangs. That dog was the instigator of the
trouble he was having! He hated the creature! He would beat it into
submission!
The gray dog was in the center of the pack, and to reach it Marks was
compelled to step over the traces of some of the other dogs. One of
them, in fear of the whip handle, sprang away as Marks approached, and
in the movement wrapped its trace around the man's foot. Marks stooped
to disentangle his foot, and as he did the dog swung in another
direction in an effort to escape.
This motion jerked the blinded man's feet from under him, and unable to
recover his balance, he fell at full length among the dogs.
In a moment the gray dog, followed by the pack, was upon the prostrate
and helpless man. The trader's team had suddenly become a snarling,
yelping savage pack of wolves.