SLUSH ICE
Toma and Dick no longer could hear Sandy hallooing, and Dick judged that
his chum was safely in hiding. Yet, as they waited, guns trained on the
door, a rifle shot shattered the silence. It came from the direction
taken by the man who had gone to investigate the calls for help. Dick’s
face paled. What did it mean? Had poor Sandy fallen? Had the man found
him?
“I’m going out,” Dick said tensely to Toma a moment later.
Whatever Toma’s reply was Dick did not hear it, for with an impatient
leap he flung open the door and disappeared. Toma remained behind, not
sure that his young white friend’s move had been wise, yet believing he
could do more to help if he stayed in the cabin.
When Dick left the cabin he made straight for the point from which he
thought the rifle shot had come. It was growing lighter. In the east a
faint gray fan of light showed over the forest—dawn. He ran on for a
little way, then he came upon tracks. Pursuing these at a run, he came
in sight of the man who had left the cabin an hour before. The meeting
was a surprise for both.
Dick dodged behind a tree as the other fired from his hip. The ball
whizzed harmlessly over Dick’s head, and he shot hastily. His shot also
went wild, but the other took to his heels. Dick did not pursue him, but
began calling for Sandy. Presently he was rewarded by a distant shout
and in a few minutes the chums were reunited.
“Did he shoot at you?” Dick queried anxiously.
“No, I don’t know what he shot at. Maybe he thought it was me,” Sandy
replied. “I’m half frozen. Gosh, it seemed hours out here.”
“Let’s hurry back to the cabin,” Dick hastened. “Toma is there, and
we’ve captured the scar faced Indian.”
Sandy was too cold to care how many Indians had been captured, and he
hobbled along after Dick like a stiff, old man.
“I hope Toma is all right,” Dick said anxiously as they neared the
cabin.
On the threshold of the cabin they stood a moment later in stark
amazement. Toma lay bleeding and silent on the floor, and the scar faced
Indian was gone!
“Well, if that doesn’t beat anything!” Dick ejaculated, rushing to Toma.
The young guide came to at the application of a little water. His head
had been struck with something; an overturned chair revealed what the
escaped Indian had probably used.
“He slip out ropes some way,” Toma explained when he could sit up once
more. “I watch door when him jump on me. That all I know.”
“I’m glad you’re alive—that’s all I can say,” Dick said thankfully.
“Hello, what’s this?” Sandy hurried from the fireplace where he had been
warming himself to the crude wooden table. A slip of paper with writing
on it lay among the scattered playing cards. Dick also hastened forward
and read the roughly scrawled words:
Pierre Govereau:
Send Many-Scar Jackson and Swede to Big John Toma’s cabin. We want the
black fox fur he has hidden there.
BEAR HENDERSON.
Dick and Sandy read it aloud to Toma.
“This my big brother’s cabin,” Toma explained simply. “Last night I see
no one when look in window. I go in. That Many-Scar and other fella come
in, ketch me. I not know where Big John is. They not find um black fox.
Big John sell um black fox t’ree weeks go by.”
Dick and Sandy dropped their eyes. They now felt sure who the man was
that Dick had fallen over—the dead man. How could they tell Toma? At
last Dick took the guide’s arm. Silently they went out, Sandy following.
Toma showed no emotion as they showed him the body partly covered with
snow. He might have been a wooden image as he said quietly:
“Him Big John Toma; I know before I see. I feel he dead. That
Many-Scar——” something choked off his voice. His dark eyes suddenly
flashed and glowed like coals of fire.
“I wouldn’t give ten cents for Many-Scar’s life, slick as that Indian
is,” Sandy whispered.
Dick nodded.
Though all felt they had no time to lose, since Govereau’s men might be
expected to follow them, they could not leave Toma’s brother without
burial.
All three set to work under the spruce trees, hacking through the frozen
soil with axes. In a half hour they had dug a shallow grave. Wrapped in
blankets, they gently lowered the body of Big John Toma to its last
resting place.
Dick fashioned a rude cross from two saplings, which he showed to Toma.
The young Indian nodded. “Good; him Christian—me too,” said the guide.
When they had placed the last sod on the mound, Dick and Sandy left
their friend alone by the grave and went to the cabin to prepare for
continuing their journey. They found much pemmican and dried fish, upon
which Big John Toma had existed, but nowhere any flour or coffee. By the
time they had arranged shoulder packs and had donned whatever warm
clothes they had found, Toma had joined them. He seemed his old self
once more, though Dick and Sandy knew that behind his mask of
indifference was deep sorrow and a mighty resolve for the redskin’s
revenge upon the murderer of his brother. The guide refused to take the
money Dick offered him for the food and clothing they had taken from Big
John’s cabin.
“We three days from Fort Dunwoody now,” Toma told them when they were
ready for the trail. “Not sure we make um three days. Big blizzard come
pretty soon now. Mebbe tomorrow. We get um dog sled then. Need um bad.”
All that day Toma led them due southeast, across higher ground, where
vegetation was sparse. They crossed one shallow valley where there were
no trees at all, and upon a ridge at the other side made camp. It was an
advantageous spot from which to watch the back trail, and before they
started on they were disturbed by the sight of three tiny figures. The
men were undoubtedly on their trail. Straight across the valley they
toiled and they were coming fast.
“I’ll bet it’s Govereau!” Dick exclaimed in alarm.
“Yes, and it looks as if we were only about three miles ahead of him,”
Sandy declared. “Let’s get a move on. I don’t want to get mixed up with
him again.”
“Neither do I,” Dick heartily agreed.
Toma was of the same mind, and they all set off at a fast pace when once
more they took to the trail. They felt confident they could lengthen the
lead on their pursuers, but two hours after noon, when they paused to
rest on a high ridge, they looked back and were astounded to see the
three men not more than a mile behind them.
“Them best trail men Govereau got,” Toma protected his own prowess on
finding that he had been outpaced.
They started on again, doubling their former speed. A half hour more
brought them to the banks of a river.
“Him Saskatoon River,” Toma told them. “Him full slush ice. We make um
raft in hurry; get over, then we safe from Govereau.”
Dick and Sandy looked off across the sullen expanse of the Saskatoon. As
Toma had said, it was filled with a slow-moving mass of slush, formed by
night freezes and day thaws.
They fell to work like Trojans on a raft, lashing dead logs together
with tiny saplings and tough vines. It was a cumbersome raft that they
at last shoved out into the icy stream. With poles to propel the
unwieldy craft, they began the perilous trip across the river. The delay
caused by the building of the raft had given their pursuers time to
overtake them, and at any moment they expected to hear a shout or rifle
shots from the shore they were slowly leaving behind.
One side of the raft was heavier than the other, and out in the current
they came near being spilled off, before they followed Toma’s example
and balanced the logs by shifting their weight from side to side.
Pushing on desperately, they reached midstream, when their pursuers
reached the river. But the few shots that were fired fell short. The
boys had poled the raft out of range. Waving their hands to the
chagrined men they reached the other shore and, abandoning their raft,
hastened on.
Once more snow was spitting out of the gray heavens, and it was growing
steadily colder. They hiked for three miles, then Toma advised a halt
The guide began immediately throwing up a shelter of boughs. Dick and
Sandy helped with a will, and they finished none too soon. With the fall
of night the blizzard Toma had prophesied swept down upon them like a
thousand, shrieking demons.