Smoke had travelled in a leisurely fashion up to Mono Creek, fearing to
tire his dogs before the big race. Also, he had familiarized himself
with every mile of the trail and located his relay camps. So many men
had entered the race, that the hundred and ten miles of its course was
almost a continuous village. Relay camps were everywhere along the
trail. Von Schroeder, who had gone in purely for the sport, had no
less than eleven dog teams--a fresh one for every ten miles. Arizona
Bill had been forced to content himself with eight teams. Big Olaf had
seven, which was the complement of Smoke. In addition, over two-score
of other men were in the running. Not every day, even in the golden
north, was a million dollars the prize for a dog race. The country had
been swept of dogs. No animal of speed and endurance escaped the
fine-tooth comb that had raked the creeks and camps, and the prices of
dogs had doubled and quadrupled in the course of the frantic
speculation.
Number Three Below Discovery was ten miles up Mono Creek from its
mouth. The remaining hundred miles was to be run on the frozen breast
of the Yukon. On Number Three itself were fifty tents and over three
hundred dogs. The old stakes, blazed and scrawled sixty days before by
Cyrus Johnson, still stood, and every man had gone over the boundaries
of the claim again and again, for the race with dogs was to be preceded
by a foot and obstacle race. Each man had to re-locate the claim for
himself, and this meant that he must place two centre-stakes and four
corner-stakes and cross the creek twice, before he could start for
Dawson with his dogs.
Furthermore, there were to be no 'sooners.' Not until the stroke of
midnight of Friday night was the claim open for re-location, and not
until the stroke of midnight could a man plant a stake. This was the
ruling of the Gold Commissioner at Dawson, and Captain Consadine had
sent up a squad of mounted police to enforce it. Discussion had arisen
about the difference between sun-time and police-time, but Consadine
had sent forth his fiat that police time went, and, further, that it
was the watch of Lieutenant Pollock that went.
The Mono trail ran along the level creek-bed, and, less than two feet
in width, was like a groove, walled on either side by the snow-fall of
months. The problem of how forty-odd sleds and three hundred dogs were
to start in so narrow a course was in everybody's mind.
"Huh!" said Shorty. "It's goin' to be the gosh-dangdest mix-up that
ever was. I can't see no way out, Smoke, except main strength an'
sweat an' to plow through. If the whole creek was glare-ice they ain't
room for a dozen teams abreast. I got a hunch right now they's goin'
to be a heap of scrappin' before they get strung out. An' if any of it
comes our way you got to let me do the punchin'."
Smoke squared his shoulders and laughed non-committally.
"No you don't!" his partner cried in alarm. "No matter what happens,
you don't dast hit. You can't handle dogs a hundred miles with a
busted knuckle, an' that's what'll happen if you land on somebody's
jaw."
Smoke nodded his head.
"You're right, Shorty. I couldn't risk the chance."
"An' just remember," Shorty went on, "that I got to do all the shovin'
for them first ten miles an' you got to take it easy as you can. I'll
sure jerk you through to the Yukon. After that it's up to you an' the
dogs. Say--what d'ye think Schroeder's scheme is? He's got his first
team a quarter of a mile down the creek an' he'll know it by a green
lantern. But we got him skinned. Me for the red flare every time."