As they ran across the bridge of planks connecting the _Yukon Rover_
with the shore, the boys saw something else. Standing by the cages in
such a position that they had not seen it before was a dog-sled.
Even as they were still on the gangway the form of a man glided through
the darkness toward the sled. In his arms he held a bundle of some sort.
“Stop where you are!” cried Tom, guessing with a catch at the heart what
it was the man was carrying.
There was no reply. The man had reached the sled and bent swiftly over
it an instant.
Crack!
Jack gave a jump. The man was not shooting. It was the sharp crack of
his dog-whip, sounding like the report of a pistol on the frozen air,
that had startled the boy.
The dogs started forward. The sled creaked on the hard, packed snow. It
began to glide off through the night like a phantom.
“Stop or we’ll fire!” shouted Jack excitedly.
He raised his rifle but Tom sternly grasped his arm.
“None of that,” ordered the elder Dacre boy sternly.
“But—but he’s a robber, or at least attempted to be one,” sputtered
Jack indignantly.
“That makes no difference. We don’t want any shooting.”
“Hoosh!” exclaimed Sandy disgustedly, “you’re going to let him get clear
away.”
Before Tom could check him, the Scotch boy had leveled his rifle and
fired in the direction of the sled, which could now only be made out as
a dark object gliding swiftly off over the snow.
From that direction there floated back to them a laugh. It was a
derisive sound that made Tom’s blood boil, but he kept his head.
“You do anything like that again, Sandy,” he said, turning on the Scotch
lad, “and you’ll have me to settle with.”
“But we can’t let him get away like that without raising a
finger,—hoosh!” exclaimed Sandy indignantly.
“Let’s first see if he has really done any harm,” said Tom, “he may have
only intended it and we have frightened him off.”
But although he spoke hopefully, Tom’s inner senses told him that the
daring marauder had done more than merely alarm them. In the first
place, there was the shot coming from the direction of the black fox’s
cage. To Tom that could mean only one thing and that was that the
intruder had killed the occupant of the cage. In fact, that was the only
way that he could have secured his prey, for the foxes were wild and
savage to a degree, and it would have been impossible for anyone to
abstract them alive.
All these thoughts and conclusions flitted through his mind while Jack
and Sandy, at his orders, were getting a lantern. When it arrived, the
three boys in any but enviable frames of mind made their way as quickly
as possible to the fox cages.
The animals were excited and frightened, and through the darkness their
anxious eyes glowed like jewels as the lantern light struck them. This
showed Tom that at least six of the cages still held their occupants.
But the seventh, the one that had been used to hold the black fox, was
apparently empty.
When they reached the pen in question even Tom could not refrain from
exclamations of anger, for the cage had been ripped open and the black
fox was indeed gone.
On the snow were blood-stains in plenty, and enough mute evidence of the
slaying and theft to enable them to reconstruct everything that had
happened as well as if they had seen it all.
“Oh! wow! Fifteen hundred dollars gone ker-plunk!” wailed Jack.
“Hoots-toots,” clucked Sandy, clicking his tongue indignantly, “the
bonny black fox killed and taken by that gloomerin’ thief!”
Tom alone was silent. The suddenness and completeness of the catastrophe
had overwhelmed him. What could they say to Mr. Dacre and his partner
when they returned from the settlement? What explanation could they make
that would excuse their seeming carelessness?
As Tom stood there beside the empty cage with the blood-stained snow at
his feet, he passed through some of the bitterest moments of his life.
He was fairly at a standstill. In the dark it would be impossible to
overtake the bold thief, and there was no means, of course, of sending
out a warning as might have been done in a civilized region.
No; the thief had vanished and there appeared to be not the remotest
chance of ever catching him. Any trader would be glad to buy the black
fox skin, and with the proceeds the marauder could easily leave the
country, leaving no trace behind him.
“What will Uncle Dacre say?”
It was Jack who voiced Tom’s gloomy thoughts. With his younger brother’s
words a sudden resolution came into Tom’s mind. Undoubtedly he, as the
one in charge of the camp, was responsible for the loss of the black
fox. It would never be seen alive again, of that he was sure.
But its skin? That was valuable. If he could only recover that, it would
at least be partial restoration for what he, perhaps unjustly, felt was
a neglect of his duty.
He came out of his reverie. Swiftly he set about examining the remainder
of the cages. They had not been tampered with. No doubt the thief knew
that he was not likely to have time to rob more than one cage
undisturbed after the noise of his gun had aroused those who were
undoubtedly on watch. With this in mind he had taken the most valuable
of the lot.
Tom’s eyes fell on the tracks of the dog-sled on the hardly frozen snow.
They lay there in the yellow lantern light as clean cut and conspicuous
almost as parallel lines of a railroad.
The boy knew that the sled must be packed heavily, probably with all the
paraphernalia of a traveling trapper. The question of how the man had
come to find out about the valuable collection of foxes on the bank of
the Porcupine River, Tom, of course, could not guess. But one thing he
did know—that the thief had left behind him a valuable trail which it
would be as easy to follow as the red line on a map indicating a
transcontinental railroad.
And that track Tom meant to follow before it grew cold. They had no dog
sleds, but they knew that the man with his heavy load could not make
very fast time. Before daylight, long before the first glimmerings of
the brief winter’s day of the north, the boys’ arrangements had been
completed.
Snow-shoes were looked over and thongs inspected, tea and provisions
packed into provision bags secured with “tump-lines,” and everything put
into readiness for the long trail that Tom and Jack (for his younger
brother was to be his companion) were to strike. As the boys had been in
the habit of going thus equipped over the long trap-line, and had become
adepts on snow-shoes, these preparations did not take long.
Sandy was almost in tears when it was decided that he was to be left
behind. But it was necessary for someone to be there to feed and guard
the foxes, and to be on hand to meet Mr. Dacre and his partner on their
return from the settlements and explain matters to them. Tom was not
certain just when their elders would get back, but he entertained a
vague hope that it might be possible to overtake the thief and secure
the black fox pelt before that time.
As the two lads glided off in the dim gray light, moving swiftly along
the thief’s trail on their snow-shoes, Sandy stood and watched them till
they were almost out of ear-shot.
“Good-luck!” he shouted and saw them turn and wave, and then, feeling
very depressed and alone, he turned back to the _Yukon Rover_ and to the
foxes which were already barking and whining for their fish.