A RACE WITH DEATH
Dick was stunned only a moment, but when his head cleared he found
himself pinioned by a powerful man, who had just lashed his hands behind
him with thongs. Nearby, Sandy and Toma struggled in the clutches of
four men. At a little distance away stood Mistak, the half-breed Eskimo,
leering with malevolent triumph upon his captives.
When the boys were completely subdued and their arms tied behind them,
Mistak came forward and searched them. He found nothing in Sandy’s and
Toma’s clothing which seemed to interest him, but Dick’s shirt pocket
disclosed the map, and filling the air with French and Eskimo curses,
the outlaw saw the handiwork of the imprisoned policeman.
“So you sink to save him!” Mistak glared at Dick. “I get you in time,
yes? Ha! By gar, you nevair meddle wiz Fred Mistak’s business more.”
Mistak’s evil intentions were only too evident, and Dick was about to
give up hope, when Toma cocked his head to one side in a listening
attitude. Dick knew the Indian youth had far keener hearing than the
average person, and felt his hopes once more rising. Whatever Toma
heard, it was of some favorable significance, for he looked squarely at
Dick and solemnly winked one eye.
“How you like find zee lost policeman?” Mistak taunted, stepping
squarely in front of Dick. “I take you zere—what you say? Ver’ fine,
eh?”
“I have nothing to say to that,” Dick replied as sternly as possible,
“but I do know we have friends near and that you will suffer for any
harm that comes to us.”
“Ha! Ha!” Mistak laughed coarsely, turning to his companion. “Hear what
zee puppy say? They have frien’ in Mistak’ country. Not ver’ near, eh?
Ha! Ha!”
It was at the instant of Mistak’s triumph that a rifle shot rang out and
one of Mistak’s men threw up his hands and fell silently to the ice. The
half-breed Eskimo staggered back, his face paling, and his mouth twisted
in a hideous smile.
Again the hidden rifle cracked, accompanied by another, whereupon
Mistak’s men ducked and ran under the deadly bullets raining about them,
leaving the boys where they had been captured.
“To zee pit!” the boys heard Mistak shriek to his men. “Kill zee
policeman before zey come!”
Mistak and his men disappeared, and almost upon their heels leaped the
two fur-clad forms of Corporal McCarthy and Constable Sloan.
In a trice they had slashed the bonds of the boys and had set them free.
“After Mistak all of you!” cried Corporal McCarthy, plunging on across
the ice after the fleeing outlaws.
Dick kept pace with the Corporal and shouted into his ear: “Mistak is
going to kill Corporal Thalman. He’s making for the pit now. You were
just in time!”
“We came as fast as we could get here as soon as we got back to camp and
found the map and instructions,” panted the policeman. “Good work you
fellows have done!”
Just then the fleeing outlaws vanished into the yawning mouth of a
cavern that led downward at a steep angle. Slipping and sliding most of
the way, the policemen and the boys tumbled after them.
“Halt! Halt!” bellowed Corporal McCarthy when they had reached a more
level incline. But Mistak’s men did not heed. Instead, the report of a
rifle sounded like a thunder clap in the underground chamber and a
bullet richochetted with a rattling noise along the walls of the cave.
“They’re shooting back at us!” cried Sandy.
In spite of the danger the policemen led the way on at a reckless run.
Down, down, they went through the dimly lighted corridors of a
subterranean vault. When it seemed to them they had gone down for nearly
five hundred feet, the cavern swiftly became level and lighter.
“We’re going to run into the bottom of the fissure now!” panted Dick
hoarsely.
Dick was right. The light grew stronger swiftly and a moment later they
saw Mistak and his three men silhouetted in an opening as they ran out
of the cavern.
Presently they burst out upon the frozen floor of a narrow canyon-like
passage that was apparently the bottom of the fissure. Far above the sky
showed like a tiny, pale ribbon. They could hear the sound of the
running outlaws’ boots on the hard surface of the bottom of the fissure
and followed them to the right. The passage was crooked and they could
see nothing ahead of them further than ten yards, but at length they
came upon the scene of Mistak’s contemplated perfidy.
Two half-breeds were at work over a hole some ten feet in diameter. With
their spears they were straining frantically to pry loose a huge lump of
ice and send it hurtling into the hole.
“They are going to crush the Corporal with that cake of ice!” cried
Dick. “We’ve reached the pit!”
The rifles of the policemen came swiftly to their shoulders, and the
great fissure reverberated with two shots. One of the half-breeds
staggered and sank upon his side, lying still. The other grasped his
shoulder with one hand, as if he had been wounded, turned and ran around
a bend in the walls of the fissure.
“Don’t follow them!” was Corporal McCarthy’s command. “Let ’em go this
time. We must get Thalman out.”
Soon they were crowded about the dark round opening of the prison pit,
and were shouting down into the darkness. In the silence that followed
their shouts down into the hole, they could hear their own hearts
beating. Was Corporal Thalman alive?
At last, as from another world, there was wafted up out of the dark
hole, a faint voice:
“Here—I—am—friends. Pretty—weak—but—still—kicking.”
“It’s Thalman!” whispered Constable Sloan hoarsely. “I can hardly
believe it.”
“We’ve got to get a rope!” Corporal McCarthy bellowed down to the
prisoner. “Hold on, and we’ll soon get you out.”
A wild laugh echoed up from the depths in answer, as if the prisoner was
about to lose his mind.
Constable Sloan was already on the run for the rope. He came back in
about twenty minutes, having lost no time in finding his way up the
cavern to the surface of the glacier where the sledges were.
Hastily they began lowering the long coil down into the hole. After
nearly fifty feet had been payed out, Corporal Thalman jerked on the
rope to signal he had it in his hands, then they all waited tensely
while he tied it securely under his shoulders. At last came the call
from the pit that all was ready. All hands grasped the rope then, and
began to heave it upward, hand over hand.
It was a strange caricature of a man that at last appeared dangling in
the loop. He was pale as a ghost from his long sojourn underground, and
a long beard covered the lower part of his face and chest. So thin was
he that his bones seemed on the point of bursting through his skin. The
prisoner’s clothing was in tatters and immediately upon striking the
upper air he began to shiver from the cold.
“We must get him to the sledges quick!” ordered Corporal McCarthy.
“There’s blankets up there, and we’ll make some hot tea for him. Just
our luck to have him pass in his checks just after we’ve saved him.”
It was a hard struggle to climb out of the cavern with the almost
helpless man, but they finally accomplished the task.
Once Corporal Thalman had been wrapped in blankets and furs and treated
to a few cups of piping hot tea, he showed signs of returning strength.
However, the policemen were in favor of returning with him immediately
to the base of supplies where everything necessary for his complete
recovery could be obtained.
“I guess you boys are elected for the job of hauling Corporal Thalman to
the main camp,” Corporal McCarthy told them. “Sloan and I will stay here
for another try at trapping that sly fox, Mistak.”
“But with only one sledge, and that loaded with Corporal Thalman, we
can’t haul in the cache of meat on the back trail,” Dick explained.
“That’s alright,” retorted the policeman. “Come back after it when you
have Thalman safe in a warm igloo with plenty of hot tea and food
nearby.”
It was with much regret that the boys bade good-bye to the policemen
once more and started out on the back trail, Corporal Thalman snugly
tucked in on the sledge.
Two days later, having traveled slow, for the comfort of their
passenger, the boys reached the base of supplies. Sipsa and the other
natives seemed overjoyed to see their young white friends again, and
they held a feast in honor of the occasion, since hunting had been so
good and they had more meat than they needed for the winter.
The day after the home-coming, Sandy was left to care for Corporal
Thalman, while Dick and Toma returned to haul in the cache of musk-ox
meat. They found the meat unmolested, and in fine condition, however,
the signs in the snow about the cache showed that numerous foxes had
made a vain effort to scratch away the stones and get at the meat.
A high wind was blowing upon their backs when Dick and Toma pulled in at
the supply base with their precious load of meat. Two hours later the
wind had risen to cyclonic velocity, sweeping tons and tons of snow
through the air until the sun was blotted out and the igloos trembled to
their strong foundations.
The storm was warning of winter and Dick and Sandy were much concerned
over the safety of the policemen. Under warm shelter the men might
weather the blizzard for days, provided they did not run out of food and
fuel oil. If they did— Dick and Sandy shuddered to think of what such
privations would mean for Corporal McCarthy and the Constable.
Three days the wind howled and shrieked and tore at the tiny knot of
igloos under the high ridge, while the tormented sea roared and pounded
on the beach, heaving great projectiles of ice far up on the land with
deafening crashes.
The third day the wind laid, and several hours afterward, two half
frozen men staggered into the camp. Dick had just looked out of an igloo
upon the new world of white, when he saw the two figures.
“Sandy! A rifle quick!” cried Dick. “It’s two of Mistak’s men.”
But no weapon was needed. The men were about dead on their feet and were
unarmed.
The foremost man gave a hoarse shout upon seeing Dick and flung up an
arm to cover his eyes as if he had seen a ghost.
“It’s Moonshine Sam!” Dick exclaimed to Sandy, who had joined him at the
igloo door.
Moonshine Sam it was who staggered up to the boys and threw himself upon
his face in the snow, his companion dropping to his side.
“I’m givin’ up,” moaned Moonshine Sam to the boys as they bent over him.
“I’d rather let the law do its worst than stay in this hell-hole any
longer.”
Dick and Sandy dragged the two outlaws into their igloo, one by one,
putting on some tea for them. They could not bear to see even those
hardened criminals suffer.
Inside, they found both the half-breed’s hands frozen as hard as stones.
Moonshine Sam’s left foot was frozen just as bad, and both men’s faces
were black. The hot tea and warmth of the igloo made the men delirious,
and Moonshine Sam especially, babbled ceaselessly.
“It’ll git ye! It’ll git ye!” he repeated many times, writhing with
pain.
“What?” Dick asked the outlaw solemnly.
“Har! Har!” the man laughed madly. “Out there, fool!” he cried. “The
white things! Mistak an’ the north!”
Both Dick and Sandy did their best to quiet the raving outlaw, but to no
avail. One moment he was cursing everything alive, and swearing to kill
all the mounted police in Canada; the next moment he became as fearful
as a child.
“Ye’ll save me from him,” he clutched at Dick with clawing fingers. “Ye
won’t let the ‘white Eskimo’ git me,” he mumbled.
By fragments the story of Moonshine Sam’s experience in the blizzard
came out. There had been a division in the band, Mistak and Moonshine
Sam quarreling and going their separate ways. Only one half-breed had
had the courage to mutiny against Fred Mistak, and follow the white man.
The two had been caught out in the storm with no food, dogs, or sleeping
bags. Only by chance had they reached the igloos of the policemen’s
encampment.
It was hours before Moonshine Sam finally fell into a troubled sleep,
and the boys could seek rest themselves.
When they awakened, Toma was bending over them.
“Police come back. They in igloo. Want you come to them,” said the young
Indian.
Outside, on the way to the policemen’s igloo, the boys found dusk upon
the desolate land. Only a rim of the sun shed its fiery radiance upon an
overhang of dull, gray clouds. Winter was overtaking them.
The boys found two gaunt and grim men when they crawled into the snow
house of the two officers. Constable Sloan had been wounded in an ambush
perpetrated by Mistak, shortly after the boys had started back to camp
with Thalman. Mistak had bested them for the present, Corporal McCarthy
was forced to admit, but the question was, should they give up and go
south before winter, leaving Mistak free in his fastnesses.
“That’s up to you, Corporal McCarthy,” Dick and Sandy replied as one.
“You’re the commander of this expedition.”
“Well, then, I’m for staying here,” went on the officer. “I’ll get
Mistak if I die in the attempt, and I mean what I say. Sloan swears
he’ll stick by me, but that’s no reason why the rest of you should. If
you start tomorrow you can go by sledge to the nearest seaport and book
passage back to Canada before you get caught in the long night, and
travel is made unsafe. What do you say?”
“We won’t quit,” Dick returned, pale but determined. “Sandy and I want
to see this to a finish and Corporal Thalman swore only yesterday that
he’d never let us take him back until Mistak went with him, or was left
behind for the foxes.”
“Shake,” Corporal McCarthy extended a hard hand, and Dick and Sandy
grasped it in turn.
“For a couple of kids you’re the nerviest he-men I ever met with,” Sloan
spoke up, a courageous grin on his pain drawn face.
“I’ll second that,” hastened Corporal McCarthy.
When Dick and Sandy left the igloo, they walked very straight, and they
were silent. The dreaded long night of the northland was close at hand
and they must stand up under hardships more terrible than they had
either ever endured, for, had Constable Sloan not called them “the
nerviest he-men I ever met with?”