FOLLOWING THE PACK-TRAIN
Through an opaque darkness filled with the oppressive silence of Arctic
night, Dick and Toma made their way. A few stars had come out like
wayward wanderers. On every side were gray, unfamiliar shapes. Objects
were shadowy and indistinct. Wolves and coyotes made the only sound
heard across that weird and mysterious wilderness.
“We ought to find him pretty soon, Toma,” Dick broke forth. “We’ve been
travelling for an hour now, and I’m sure we’ve been making better
progress than the pack-train.”
They came to the foot of a slope and started up, side by side, their
moccasined feet swishing through the freshly fallen snow. Gaining the
summit of the hill, they paused for breath. Then the quick ears of the
guide, straining always for some sound that might be significant,
detected a faint rustling ahead.
“I hear him. We go careful now. Mebbe him Corporal Rand. But no take
chances. Not always be too sure.”
Rand it was. He stood waiting for them, one hand on his hip, the other
raised in a warning gesture.
“They’re ahead—not more than a few rods. Listen, and you can hear them.”
“Yes, I can hear something,” whispered Dick. “Did you think we were
never coming, corporal?”
“As a matter of fact,” Rand answered him, “I didn’t expect you for
another half hour. You’ve made good time.”
The three started forward slowly, keeping always within sound of the
cavalcade in front. Sometimes they approached so closely that they could
hear the voices of the packers and occasionally the snarling of the
dogs. Soon they had learned something of importance: La Qua’s pack-train
consisted both of ponies and dog teams. There were seven or eight
horses, in addition to four teams of huskies.
“You see,” explained Rand, “La Qua was in a predicament. The snow storm
interfered with his plans. His original intention, evidently, was to
take only pack-horses. The heavy snow made this inadvisable. But he
didn’t have as many dog teams as he required to move away the cache. So
he was forced to use the ponies as well.”
Just before daybreak, the pack-train halted in the lee of a small
mountain. From a position a few hundred yards away, concealed by rocks,
Rand and the two boys watched it. Breakfast was soon in progress. Smoke
curled up from several campfires. It was not an altogether unpleasant
scene and Dick’s mouth watered at the thought of the nourishing meal,
piping hot, the outlaws would presently sit down to. He even imagined he
could smell the appetizing odor of frying bacon and the pungent aroma of
coffee. A little crestfallen, he nibbled at his own emergency rations,
huddling down against a flat surface of rock.
Later, Dick looked out again, eyes bleared and bloodshot. Every muscle
in his body ached. Lack of sleep had induced a strange condition—an
overpowering lassitude he could not shake off. The rustling of a pine
tree near by had become a sing-song, half-musical chant, which
momentarily grew louder. His vision played him false. Objects around him
were distorted, sometimes grotesque. His mind had lost its function.
Nothing was real. Nothing mattered. He fell asleep, sitting up—a sleep
so sound, so intense, so deep that Rand saw the uselessness of
attempting to wake him.
When he recovered consciousness, he heard the corporal speaking:
“He’s coming to, Toma. Give him another shake.”
Dick stared about him guiltily. He surmised that he had slept only a few
minutes but the sight of the round orb of the sun, high above the
horizon, quickly disillusioned him.
“Why—why didn’t you wake me?” he gasped. “How long have I been here?
What time is it, corporal?”
“Nine o’clock. You’ve slept four hours.”
“I did?” Dick’s eyes were wide with dismay.
“Yes, you did. But don’t think I blame you,” Rand laughed. “You couldn’t
help it. It was inevitable. No person can manage without sleep. I had a
little doze myself. We can’t lose the pack-train now. It will be easy to
follow their tracks in broad daylight. We’ll catch up to them again
before nightfall.”
All day they travelled, passing through a country of hills and rocks,
with mountain peaks towering above them. The summits of the mountains
were lost in an enveloping, vaporous mist. Shaggy heights were
resplendent in rainbow garb. The deep brown of rock surfaces was a
decided contrast to the scintillating white of the trail.
Late in the afternoon the tracks led them across a wind-swept plateau,
thence down to a narrow defile which ran uninterruptedly westward for a
distance of four or five miles. As they approached its end, Corporal
Rand was surprised into a quick ejaculation.
“Can’t see how we can get out of this. Surely they didn’t climb those
slippery rocks.”
A few yards further on, they found the solution to the mystery. On the
left they saw an opening in the rocks, scarcely more than four feet
wide—in reality a wide crack that split the immense formation of rock
from top to bottom. Passing through it, they emerged into what appeared
to be a wide valley, stretching far ahead. The corporal gasped in
amazement. Dick stood bewildered. Even Toma so far forgot himself as to
cry out in wonder.
“Blind Man’s Pass!” exclaimed the two boys.
“Blind Man’s Pass,” replied the policeman. “At last a reality!
Wonderful! I can scarcely credit my senses. Beautiful, isn’t it, Dick?”
Dick nodded. “I was never more astonished in my life. No wonder the
entrance to the pass is so hard to find. Even now I doubt if I could go
back eight or ten miles and find my way here again.”
A strange far-away look flecked the eyes of the policeman. He glanced up
at the receding walls of the valley. Up, up, up, hundreds, thousands of
feet through an amber haze of sunlight, streaked here and there with
bright tints and shades. Magic seemed to touch everything. Dick was
obsessed with a sense of unreality, of majestic heights, of vague
distances.
Along the comparatively level floor of the valley lay only a few inches
of snow. The tracks of the pack-train could easily be seen. They were
not difficult to follow. There was no danger now of wandering afield and
losing their bearings. The mountains shut them in—completely encompassed
them. Neither they nor the outlaws could clamber up the unscalable
heights.
Their onward trek had assumed something of the nature of an outing, a
mysterious adventure through unfamiliar scenes. In the hours that passed
never once did Dick lose interest in his surroundings. Sleep had revived
him and his spirits had risen accordingly. He and his two companions
hurried on, conversing as gaily as if they were going to a holiday
festival.
Day ended with startling suddenness. But the gloomy, threatening
darkness of the preceding night did not come. It was more radiant,
softly nocturnal—a half-moon riding across a bedecked, star-sprinkled
sky. Crackling northern lights. Clear, crisp, exhilarating air. The only
obscurities lay along the shadowed walls of the valley, in the deep
recesses and fissures of the rocks.
Day after day, they fared westward amid scenes of grandeur and
magnificence. Never did they approach closer than a mile or two to the
outlaws. At night very often they could see twinkling campfires ahead.
Frequently, on clear days, they perceived the pack-train itself—tiny
black dots, crawling like ants over sugar or white sand. Once, climbing
to the commanding position of a huge crag, for nearly an hour Dick
watched the progress of the cavalcade.
Outside of these minor incidents, there was little of importance to
distinguish one day from another. Fortunately, there had been no marked
change in the weather. They were forced to conserve their supplies, but
now and again ptarmigan were secured, making a much appreciated change
in the monotony of their diet. On the morning of the tenth day the
valley widened out and by evening they had made their way out of the
pass into a country of rugged and broken contours. Soon the forest
encroached. Then the topography of the land became less undulating, less
forbidding. In the breath of the wind they could smell the unmistakable
tang of the Pacific. It was shortly after this that a most mysterious
incident occurred.
It was afternoon, of a calm, sunshiny day, and only a few hours previous
they had picked up a well-marked trail, leading to the westward. The
pack-train—they had good reason to believe—was less than a mile ahead;
and Dick and his two companions were moving along slowly, when,
unexpectedly to their right, scarcely a hundred yards back from the
trail, they perceived a log cabin. Upon closer approach, they saw that
the place was inhabited. A thin spiral of smoke curled up from the mud
chimney. Outside, stretched on convenient drying-frames, were pelts of
various wild animals.
Invariably cautious, Rand decided not to go in, even though his visit
might have been rewarded by a goodly supply of fresh meat.
“I hate to risk it,” he informed the boys. “No telling who lives there.
I’ve no desire to advertise my presence. We’d better conquer our
curiosity and our appetites and keep right on.”
They were now directly opposite the cabin. Dick and Toma turned longing
eyes in its direction.
“Look! Ponies!” exclaimed Toma.
“Where?” sharply demanded Rand.
The guide pointed. Back in the heavy underbrush, near the edge of a
natural clearing, were three ponies staked out in the snow. The
policeman’s face instantly became serious, though for what reason Dick
could not decide. From that moment, he grew more and more thoughtful.
Once or twice, as Dick looked his way, he saw Rand shake his head. But
in the interest of new scenes, Dick quickly forgot the incident. It was
fully an hour later before it was brought again to his attention.
“Queer thing about those ponies,” Rand mused aloud. “Seldom that these
trappers keep any around. It puzzles me.”
“It does seem strange,” agreed Dick. “Can’t imagine what use a trapper
would have for them.”
A few miles farther on they passed a second cabin, almost identical to
the first. Here too was the same phenomenon—except that at this place
there were two ponies instead of three. So amazed was Rand that he
stopped short and scratched his head in perplexity.
“This is a new one on me,” he scowled. “I’ve travelled thousands of
miles through the North, met every type of trapper, both Indians and
white men, but this is the first time I have ever witnessed this
incongruity. Trappers with ponies! Dog teams—yes! But ponies never! Can
you explain it, Toma?”
“No. I not understand, corporal.”
Twice, during the next two days, the incident was repeated. They passed
other trappers’ shacks where there were ponies. However, now the thing
had become such a commonplace occurrence that they ceased to marvel at
it. New interests occupied their attention. The trail had widened and
had become almost a road. Indian villages were passed. They saw totem
poles. They crossed a river. Obliterated now were the tracks of the
pack-train. More and more traffic with each succeeding day. One morning
Dick made a suggestion.
“Don’t you think we ought to hurry along and catch up to them, corporal?
They may be travelling faster now and may give us the slip. We can slow
down again as soon as we catch sight of them.”
“Good idea,” responded Rand.
There ensued a long period of forced marching, during which the little
party hardly took time to eat or sleep. Hour after hour, they hurried
on. The pace began to tell. Nearly fifty-four hours later, climbing to a
height of land, they saw stretching out before them, perhaps not more
than ten miles away, the huge, broad expanse of the ocean. But nowhere
along the trail ahead was there a sign of the pack-train. Corporal
Rand’s face shadowed with apprehension.
“Something mighty queer about this,” he pronounced. “I can’t understand
it. I’m beginning to feel like a fool.”
“But what do you mean, corporal?”
“The pack-train—” the policeman’s voice caught.
“Yes. Yes,” persisted Dick. “What about it?”
Rand rubbed a hand across his troubled forehead.
“Just this, Dick: I can’t believe that the outlaws have been able to
gain so quickly on us. I wonder what has happened.”
“They must be ahead somewhere. We’ve followed them all the way. They
couldn’t just disappear in thin air.”
Before replying, the corporal brushed the snow from a flat rock and sat
down.
“That’s the natural hypothesis. But the facts don’t seem to bear it
out.”
“You mean—”
“I mean,” said the policeman, “that we’ve been hoodwinked. They’ve
contrived somehow to give us the slip. I’m positive we won’t find them
ahead. Do you suppose we passed their camp during the night?”