THE HART RIVER _CACHE_
The iron-clawed winter had come roaring out of the North and
descended upon the hill country in a series of furious blizzards that
enveloped the rock-ribbed land and the frozen surface of lakes and
rivers in a man-deep thickness of snow. B Division slept in its
_mukluks_, and generally speaking, its _mukluks_ were far from
headquarters. For the malevolent ferocity of the storms had caught
many of the dwellers of the hills and the barrens unprepared, and
tons of relief grub went out with the dog trains of the Mounted.
Corporal Rickey and Special Constable Connie Morgan were crowding
Connie's team of ten big _malamutes_ to reach Hart River cabin where
the police _cache_ would supply the grub for the one hundred and
twenty mile return trip to Dawson.
"The MacPherson patrol ort to be along any day now," said Rickey, as
the two camped for lunch in the shelter of a thicket of scrub. "But
they'll be enough grub fer them an' us, too. They's fifty pound of
flour, an' seventy-five pound of bacon, and forty or fifty pound of
beans, besides five hundred-odd pound of fish fer the dogs."
"We'll pull in there this afternoon," opined Connie as he split off
some shavings, while Rickey attacked a near-by spruce with his axe.
Dropping to his knees the boy thrust a match into his pile of
shavings, but even as the tiny flame began to lick at the light, dry
wood, he straightened swiftly and glanced toward the spot where a
moment before the sound of Rickey's axe had rung upon the slender
trunk of a dead spruce a dozen yards away.
The sound of the axe strokes had suddenly ceased and in his ears
sounded a half-stifled grunt of surprise and pain. With his back
toward the boy, Rickey leaned heavily upon the fallen tree-trunk,
while his right hand wrenched to loosen something from the snow at
his feet. With a jerk the man straightened, and Connie saw that his
face showed yellowish white against the glistening background of
snow. With a cry the boy leaped to his feet, as his eyes encountered
the object Rickey held in his hand. It was the light camp axe, red
to half the depth of its blade with a filming of blood, that had
already frozen upon its polished surface. Rickey took one step
forward, and the boy was at his side.
"Struck a knot," explained the Corporal between clenched teeth, "an'
glanced. Serves me right, I guess. I hadn't ort to had my foot
there. I know'd better but--Jimminy--she hurts! Le's get over to
the fire an' have a look at her."
Connie helped Corporal Rickey to a blanket spread beside the tiny
blaze and hurriedly collected dead branches, while the injured man
removed his _mukluk_ and legging and a double thickness of
blood-soaked woollen socks. As the flames bit into the dry wood, the
boy made a dive for the First-Aid kit. The gash was a nasty one,
bone-deep just below the ankle joint; and though they twisted a
tourniquet until Rickey growled with pain, it was an hour before the
flow of blood was staunched and the wound properly bandaged.
"This is a fine layout," grumbled the officer. "Ten years in the
service lackin' two months, an' here I up an' sink an axe in my hoof
like the rawest _chechako_ that ever mushed over the Chilkoot."
"Any one would think you did it on purpose," laughed Connie.
"Couldn't of done no better job if I had," grumbled Rickey, and
trailed off into a long tirade of self-accusation.
"Get it out of your system," urged the boy, "and then get some of
this grub into it, and we'll hit the trail. We might be a lot worse
off. We'll make the cabin tonight and you can rest up for a couple
of days. The MacPherson patrol may be along before that, but even if
it don't come, the old ten-team will jerk us back to Dawson, without
your setting a foot on snow."
"Oh, 'tain't that," groaned Rickey, "an' 'tain't the hurtin', though
that's bad enough--it bites clean up to the hip. But it's pullin'
the fool stunt, an' what the boys'll say when we git back."
"That's all right," soothed Connie. "Most of 'em have pulled stunts
like that themselves. Didn't McKeever shoot himself through the arm
with his own gun? And didn't Peters let his canoe get away and have
to walk thirty miles through swamps and over rock ridges in fly time?
And didn't----"
"Yeh, that's the trouble. An' what did I say to 'em when they done
it? I've kidded 'em an' ragged 'em an' made 'em so sore that take it
first an' last, I've like to had to fight the whole kit and caboodle
of 'em. An' now--" he grunted dismally. "My time's up, come
Febrooary, an' I've almost got a notion to lay up here on Hart River
'til then an' not 'list no more."
Connie laughed. "You ain't got nerve enough to do that, Rickey.
You've got nerve enough to go back and face 'em, but you ain't got
nerve enough to quit!" Whereat Rickey grinned and with his foot
wrapped in an enormous thickness of blankets he allowed Connie to
ease him onto the sled, where he suffered in grim silence with his
back against the bed-rolls, until the outfit drew up before the door
of Hart River cabin.
Although it was Connie's first visit to the place, he sensed from the
moment he halted the dogs that something was wrong. For the snow was
well trampled about the cabin and its door stood slightly ajar.
Hastily removing his rackets, he pushed inside, where one swift
glance assured him that his worst fears were realized. The Hart
River _cache_ had been robbed!
Within the four walls of the cabin there remained not a single ounce
of flour, or beans, or tea, or bacon. But not alone because the
_cache_ had been rifled was Connie seized with the blind fury that
left him white and shaking, nor was it because the five hundred-odd
pounds of dry fish, which had been laid by for dog feed, was
scattered promiscuously about the floor and bunk, but because of the
abject wantonness, the abysmal meanness of soul that had caused the
marauders to smash the little sheet-iron stove into a useless pile of
junk. The voice of Rickey calling from the sled aroused the boy from
his transport of rage. With a bound he reached the door.
"Someone has busted the _cache_!" he cried hoarsely, "and scattered
the fish, and smashed the stove!" Suddenly he leaped for the sled.
"Get off there and give me that carbine! They didn't have any dogs
or sled. They're packing the stuff afoot. I'll put this old
ten-team on their trail and I'll-- You bet they'll wish they never
saw Hart River cabin!"
"Hold on there, kid," soothed Rickey, as he stared up into the face
of the youngest recruit in the Yukon. "Le's don't go off
half-cocked. Jest help me inside now an' we'll size up the layout.
Mebbe things ain't as bad as they look."
"Not as bad as they look!" cried Connie, his eyes blazing. "With the
grub all gone, and the stove smashed, and us with only grub enough
for a day or two, and the MacPherson patrol due any time and
depending on this _cache_ to take 'em on to Dawson, and you with your
foot half cut off!"
Rickey grinned: "Well, that's the first time I ever heard you growl,
an' believe me, when you growl you roar, don't you, kid? Come here
now an' git in under my arm and h'ist me up offen this sled. You say
they didn't take the fish. Well, there's grub, ain't it? They ain't
no law ag'in a man eatin' fish jest because it's billed fer the dogs,
is they?"
Connie helped Rickey into the cabin and piloted him through the
litter of dry fish that covered the floor to a seat on the edge of
the bunk. "That stove is sure bunged up consid'able," admitted the
Corporal, "but it can be straightened out to hold a fire. It may
smoke some, but that ain't going to hurt us none. 'Tain't no fancy
cookin' utensil no more, but it'll boil water. And them dried fish
ain't so bad. Jest dig in now and red up the place a bit, an' then
we'll make medicine."
While Connie collected the fish from the floor, unharnessed and fed
his dogs, and carried firewood from the pile from behind the cabin,
Rickey with the aid of his axe, succeeded in restoring the stove to
some semblance of its original appearance. Luckily the pipe had
escaped notice of the marauders, and the boy soon had a fire going
and a kettle of fish boiling. As he busied himself about the camp,
his brain worked rapidly, and later, while the two devoured their
boiled fish, he broached his plan.
"We'll stay here in the cabin tonight," he began "and I'll get a good
rest and rest up the dogs, and in the morning I'll hit out after
those fellows. They haven't got more than two or three days' start.
And when once that old leader of mine ties onto a trail, he never
quits. You'll have to stay here 'til I get back with the grub and
the outfit that's got it. Then we'll leave enough in the _cache_ for
the MacPherson patrol and hike on into Dawson with our prisoners."
"How many of 'em is they?" asked Rickey dubiously.
"Four," answered the boy promptly. "They came in from the north-west
and hit straight east toward the Mackenzie. They can't travel fast
with the packs they've got."
"Hit east, did they?" mused Rickey, "an' come from the north-west?
Must be part of a whalin' outfit that's got wrecked somewhere. An'
believe me, they're headin' into a bleak country when they hit east
from Hart River. Why, they ain't nothin' over there! Not a blame
thing between here an' the Mackenzie except old man Wurtz's cabin,
about fifty miles east of here. Wurtz, he was a kind of a prospector
an' trapper. Died a couple of years back. But he sure did build
some cabin. It's little, but it's a reg'lar fort--loopholes an' all.
He didn't trust the Injuns none. Like as not that's where them
fellows is right now. An' if they be, how in thunder do you expect
to git 'em out of there? The cabin's in a kind of a bowl or basin at
the head of a red rock draw, an' they can see you comin' half a mile."
Rickey shook his head. "You couldn't do it, kid. The odds ain't
right. The only way to git 'em out of there would be to surround 'em
an' starve 'em out. An' we ain't in no shape to do that. Them
fellows ain't goin' to be no easy job to handle. Any one that'd bust
a _cache_, 'specially a police _cache_, ain't goin' to stop at
nothin'. If my foot was so's I could go with you, we'd tackle it in
a minute."
"Look here, Rickey," interrupted Connie, "you've got to let me try
anyway. Who got you out of that pickle with the Yellow Knives? And
who brought in Notorious Bishop? And who did a lot of things I could
mention, if I wanted to brag? I'm no _chechako_! You needn't think
I'm going to run out there and make any fool play with odds of four
to one against me. But it won't hurt to have a look, anyway. And
besides, if they haven't got any more sense than to bust a police
_cache_, it ain't going to be hard to outguess 'em."
Rickey grinned. "If it comes down to a guessin' match you can
outguess 'em, son," he admitted, eying the boy proudly. "But after
you git 'em outguessed--what you going to do then? Outguessin' 'em's
one thing, an' bringin' 'em in is another."
Connie was quick to see that his superior's decision was wavering.
"That'll be my job," he answered. "I brought in Notorious Bishop,
didn't I?"
"Yeh," admitted Rickey. "But they was only one of him, an' anyway he
just _come_ along."
Connie laughed. "Maybe these fellows will _come_ along, too. Anyway
Notorious was smart, and these fellows are fools or they wouldn't
have busted the _cache_."
"Looks like a fool trick fer one kid to go after a hull gang."
"Four fools are four times as foolish as one fool," retorted the boy.
"Anyway, you've got to let me try!"
Rickey's further objections were promptly met, and the boy obtained
reluctant consent to be allowed to slip over and "have a look at
'em." After that the two redressed Rickey's wound and rolled into
their blankets.
The stars were beginning to pale in the night sky when Connie's ten
great _malamutes_ shot out upon the trail of the four marauders. The
boy was travelling light. A half-pound of tea, five pounds of
pemmican, and a hundred pounds of dry fish, together with his
bed-roll and carbine, made up his entire load. And on the tail of
the sled the boy bent low to the sweep of the wind as the runner
slipped smoothly over the wind-packed, cold-hardened snow. On and on
he flew, dipping now into a deep ravine and again topping a ridge or
circling a low snow mountain. At noon he boiled a pot of tea at the
place where the fugitives had evidently spent their first night in
camp. "A good twenty miles," muttered the boy. "To-night ought to
put me within ten miles of Wurtz's cabin."
That night he camped in a patch of scrawny scrub, where the four had
made their second night's encampment. And after feeding his dogs, he
ate sparingly of the pemmican, drank a little tea, and boiled half of
a fish. After supper he removed his carbine from its case, assured
himself that it was in proper working order, and carefully went over
his service revolver. Then, spreading his bed close beside the fire
he rolled in.
He breakfasted before dawn and was surprised to see that only six
dogs crowded to the fire in eagerness for their morning fish. In
vain the boy called and whistled, and with a sudden fear in his
heart, hurried to the edge of the scrub. A slight movement attracted
his attention, and, peering through the bushes, Connie saw one of the
missing_ malamutes_ rise slowly, stagger stiffly for a step or two,
and then fall in the snow. White froth foamed from its lips, and
even as the boy looked the dog writhed in a sudden convulsion. Then
with stiffened limbs, it shuddered, and lay dead in the snow at his
feet. In the open another tawny shape lay rigid and frozen, and
beyond a little hummock the other two huddled together--dead, their
back-curled lips sealed with frozen foam.
"Poisoned!"
The single word fairly hissed from the boy's lips, and turning, he
dashed toward camp where, after satisfying himself that the remaining
six dogs showed no traces of illness, he began feverishly to pack the
sled.
"They're the best dogs in the Yukon," he choked, striving vainly to
swallow the great lump that rose in his throat. "You just wait! You
just wait!" he sobbed, shaking his fist toward the east, where the
grey dawn was beginning to lighten the far horizon. He did not
return the carbine case to its straps, but harnessing his dogs, threw
himself upon his sled with the carbine lying conveniently beneath his
legs.
For two hours the tireless leader held to the trail that bore to the
eastward, while Connie with set jaw and narrowed eyes scanned the
bleak barrens for sight of the patch of scrub timber that Rickey had
told him fringed the broad depression, in the centre of which old man
Wurtz had built his cabin. The dogs topped a long, low ridge, and
before him, a half-mile away, the boy saw the timber--a scraggling
patch of scrub, the first he had encountered since his camp of the
night before. With a tightening of the lips, he urged the dogs
forward and a few minutes later came to a halt in the shelter of the
stunted growth.
The trail of the four continued on through, and, carbine in hand,
Connie crept forward to the opposite edge. Throwing himself flat, he
scanned the bowl-like depression before him. Almost in the exact
centre of the mile-wide sweep of snow stood the cabin. And the boy's
heart gave a bound as he noted that smoke curled from its chimney.
Old man Wurtz had planned well against surprise, for, as he studied
the lay of the land, Connie saw that by no possible chance could any
one approach the cabin by daylight unknown to its occupants. A long
time he lay turning over in his mind scheme after scheme. The
poisoning of his dogs had moved the boy as nothing had ever moved
him, and he determined that he would never return to Hart River with
his friends' deaths unavenged.
His attention suddenly became riveted upon the cabin. The door
opened and a man, closely followed by three others, stepped out upon
the snow. Connie saw that they all carried rifles and his mittened
hands tightened unconsciously upon his carbine. For what seemed an
interminable period the four talked, gesticulated, and pointed, and
then having apparently reached an agreement, each started in a
different direction. The boy noted with a sudden thrill that they
carried no packs. They had left the supplies in the cabin!
Evidently then, this was a hunting expedition, or possibly they meant
to lay out a trap line. The boy's brain worked rapidly as the
distance widened between the four men. One was approaching directly
toward him, and, wriggling back from the edge of the timber, but
still keeping the man in sight, he took his position close beside the
trail, screened from it by a thick growth of scrub. The dogs were
upon the outer edge of the patch some two hundred yards in the rear
and the boy hoped fervently that they would not get wind of the
stranger until he entered the thicket. Every little way the man
paused to toss something into the snow.
"Fur poisoner!" muttered Connie between clenched teeth. "Gee whiz!
You fellows'll have a lot to answer for! Guess they're whalers, all
right," he added as he studied the man who was garbed from head to
foot in sealskin. "Anyway, they've come down from the Eskimo
country. And before I get through with 'em I'll bet they'll wish
they'd stayed there!"
The man was nearing the scrub. Drawing back the hammer of his
carbine, Connie levelled it between the branches of his bush. Not
ten yards away at the edge of the scrub the man paused and the boy
followed his glance as it swept the wide basin. The other three
figures showed like little black bugs at widely separated points
almost upon the rim of the basin. Dropping the butt of his rifle
into the snow, the man reached into a pouch, produced a small ball of
suet which he rolled for a moment between his mittens, and tossed
onto the crust. Then gripping his rifle by the barrel, he turned and
abruptly entered the scrub. Connie crouched until the man was within
six feet of him:
"Hands up!" The words snapped short, and half-turning the man stared
in round-eyed surprise at the figure, which appeared suddenly above
the top of a bush almost at his side. "Drop that gun! Quick!"
The man's gaze focused upon the muzzle of Connie's carbine and his
rifle dropped into the snow. "Now reach!" Up went the man's hands.
"Walk straight ahead!" The man obeyed and came a few yards farther
on to a small open space. "Lie down!" commanded the boy shortly.
The man dropped to his hands and knees. "Flat! Flat on your belly!
And keep on reaching!"
When the man was stretched helplessly before him, Connie approached
and slipping his hand beneath the sealskin parka, withdrew a heavy
cutlass, which he transferred to his own belt. After making sure
that he carried no other weapon the boy backed off a few steps. "You
can sit up now," he said. The man obeyed clumsily, like a trained
bear. He was a low-browed, repulsive creature, his face covered by
an unkempt growth of hair, above which two eyes gleamed hatefully.
"Who be ye?" he growled. "An' w'at d'ye mean orderin' a cove around
that way? It'd pay ye to be more civil-like meetin' up with me. I'm
hard! An' the three that's with me's hard. We're hard men, I tell
ye, an' it don't go good with them that riles us. Who be ye, I says?"
"Who? Me?" answered the boy. "I'm Special Constable Morgan of the
Mounted." At the name the man started and eyed Connie searchingly.
Opening his mouth he emitted a loud guffaw.
"The Mounted!" he scoffed. "Him 'thout no ha'r on 'is chin in the
Mounted! Come on now, a joke's a joke, an' I will say ye got me
foul. But 'nough's 'nough. I tell ye we're hard men--me an' my
mates." As the man talked Connie backed, always keeping him covered,
to the point where he had dropped his rifle in the snow. It was of
modern bolt construction and in a jiffy the boy had unshipped the
bolt and hurled it far into the scrub.
"Hey, quit that!" yelled the man starting to scramble to his feet.
"Sit down!"
Once more the man's eyes sought the muzzle of the carbine and he sat
down. "Toss me that pack of poison balls!" commanded Connie. The
man did not move. The next instant there was a loud report, and with
a frightened cry he keeled backward into the snow. Hastily he shook
off a mitten and his fingers explored the ragged gash that Connie's
bullet had ripped in the side of his parka-hood. Then, without a
word, he unslung the bag and tossed it to the feet of the boy.
"Get up!" commanded Connie shortly.
The man scrambled hastily to his feet. A look of fear had replaced
the hateful gleam in his eyes, and Connie pointed to the rifle.
"Pick that up an' smash it against a tree." The man reached for the
harmless gun and banged it against the trunk of a near-by sapling.
"Smash it, I said!" And with one terrified glance at the muzzle of
the carbine the man sent it crashing against the tree-trunk with a
force that sent the walnut stock spinning into the brush. Whereupon
Connie turned upon his heel and walked towards his waiting dogs. The
man followed him to the edge of the scrub.
"Hey," he called, "w'at you goin' to do?"
Connie ignored him and swung the leader into the trail.
"Hey," he persisted, "mebbe ye be the Mounted after all. Le's git
together. Ye can't handle us all. They's four of us an' I'm tellin'
ye we're hard! W'at you goin' to do w'en ye git us 'rested."
Connie grinned into his face. "You ain't arrested," he answered.
"You can go wherever you please. I'm going down to the cabin." The
boy worked his dogs through the scrub and heading them for the open,
threw himself on the sled.
"But, hey!" called the man. "How ye goin' to--" Without so much as
turning his head, Connie cracked the whip above the ears of his dogs,
and the six great _malamutes_ tore over the surface of the snow that
sloped gently away from the rim of the huge bowl.