"Oh, we white men are hogs," Smoke filled in the interval, resentful himself at the part he was compelled to play. "We'd sell our souls for gold, and all that; but once in a while we forget about it and turn loose and do something without a thought of how much there is in it. And when we do that, Cultus George, watch out. What we want to know now is: Are you going to take out that team?"

Cultus George debated with himself. He was no coward. Perhaps this was the extent of their bluff, and if he gave in now he was a fool. And while he debated, Smoke suffered from secret worry lest this stubborn aborigine would persist in being hanged.

"How much?" said Cultus George.

Smoke started to raise his hand for the signal.

"Me go," Cultus George said very quickly, before the rope could tighten.

"An' when that rescue expedition found me," Shorty told it in the Annie Mine, "that ornery Cultus George was the first in, beatin' Smoke's sled by three hours, an' don't you forget it, Smoke comes in second at that.

Just the same, it was about time, when I heard Cultus George a-yellin'

at his dogs from the top of the divide, for those blamed Siwashes had ate my moccasins, my mitts, the leather lacin's, my knife-sheath, an'

some of 'em was beginnin' to look mighty hungry at me--me bein' better nourished, you see.

"An' Smoke? He was near dead. He hustled around a while, helpin' to start a meal for them two hundred sufferin' Siwashes; an' then he fell asleep, settin' on his haunches, thinkin' he was feedin' snow into a thawin'-pail. I fixed him my bed, an' dang me if I didn't have to help him into it, he was that give out. Sure I win the toothpicks. Didn't them dogs just naturally need the six salmon Smoke fed 'em at the noonin'?"

IX. THE MISTAKE OF CREATION

"Whoa!" Smoke yelled at the dogs, throwing his weight back on the gee-pole to bring the sled to a halt.

"What's eatin' you now?" Shorty complained. "They ain't no water under that footing."

"No; but look at that trail cutting out to the right," Smoke answered.

"I thought n.o.body was wintering in this section."

The dogs, on the moment they stopped, dropped in the snow and began biting out the particles of ice from between their toes. This ice had been water five minutes before. The animals had broken through a skein of ice, snow-powdered, which had hidden the spring water that oozed out of the bank and pooled on top of the three-foot winter crust of Nordbeska River.

"First I heard of anybody up the Nordbeska," Shorty said, staring at the all but obliterated track covered by two feet of snow, that left the bed of the river at right angles and entered the mouth of a small stream flowing from the left. "Mebbe they're hunters and pulled their freight long ago."

Smoke, scooping the light snow away with mittened hands, paused to consider, scooped again, and again paused. "No," he decided. "There's been travel both ways, but the last travel was up that creek. Whoever they are, they're there now--certain. There's been no travel for weeks.

Now what's been keeping them there all the time? That's what I want to know."

"And what I want to know is where we're going to camp to-night," Shorty said, staring disconsolately at the sky-line in the southwest, where the mid-afternoon twilight was darkening into night.

"Let's follow the track up the creek," was Smoke's suggestion. "There's plenty of dead timber. We can camp any time."

"Sure we can camp any time, but we got to travel most of the time if we ain't goin' to starve, an' we got to travel in the right direction."

"We're going to find something up that creek," Smoke went on.

"But look at the grub! Look at them dogs!" Shorty cried. "Look at--oh, h.e.l.l, all right. You will have your will."

"It won't make the trip a day longer," Smoke urged. "Possibly no more than a mile longer."

"Men has died for as little as a mile," Shorty retorted, shaking his head with lugubrious resignation. "Come on for trouble. Get up, you poor sore-foots, you--get up! Haw! You Bright! Haw!"

The lead-dog obeyed, and the whole team strained weakly into the soft snow.

"Whoa!" Shorty yelled. "It's pack trail."

Smoke pulled his snow-shoes from under the sled-lashings, bound them to his moccasined feet, and went to the fore to press and pack the light surface for the dogs.

It was heavy work. Dogs and men had been for days on short rations, and few and limited were the reserves of energy they could call upon. Though they followed the creek bed, so p.r.o.nounced was its fall that they toiled on a stiff and unrelenting up-grade. The high rocky walls quickly drew near together, so that their way led up the bottom of a narrow gorge.

The long lingering twilight, blocked by the high mountains, was no more than semi-darkness.

"It's a trap," Shorty said. "The whole look of it is rotten. It's a hole in the ground. It's the stampin'-ground of trouble."

Smoke made no reply, and for half an hour they toiled on in silence--a silence that was again broken by Shorty.

"She's a-workin'," he grumbled. "She's sure a-workin', an' I'll tell you if you're minded to hear an' listen."

"Go on," Smoke answered.

"Well, she tells me, plain an' simple, that we ain't never goin' to get out of this hole in the ground in days an' days. We're goin' to find trouble an' be stuck in here a long time an' then some."

"Does she say anything about grub?" Smoke queried unsympathetically.

"For we haven't grub for days and days and days and then some."

"Nope. Nary whisper about grub. I guess we'll manage to make out. But I tell you one thing, Smoke, straight an' flat. I'll eat any dog in the team exceptin' Bright. I got to draw the line on Bright. I just couldn't scoff him."

"Cheer up," Smoke girded. "My hunch is working overtime. She tells me there'll be no dogs eaten, and, whether it's moose or caribou or quail on toast, we'll all fatten up."

Shorty snorted his unutterable disgust, and silence obtained for another quarter of an hour.

"There's the beginning of your trouble," Smoke said, halting on his snow-shoes and staring at an object that lay on one side of the old trail.

Shorty left the gee-pole and joined him, and together they gazed down on the body of a man beside the trail.

"Well fed," said Smoke.

"Look at them lips," said Shorty.

"Stiff as a poker," said Smoke, lifting an arm, that, without moving, moved the whole body.

"Pick 'm up an' drop 'm and he'd break to pieces," was Shorty's comment.

The man lay on his side, solidly frozen. From the fact that no snow powdered him, it was patent that he had lain there but a short time.

"There was a general fall of snow three days back," said Shorty.

Smoke nodded, bending over the corpse, twisting it half up to face them, and pointing to a bullet wound in the temple. He glanced to the side and tilted his head at a revolver that lay on top of the snow.

A hundred yards farther on they came upon a second body that lay face downward in the trail. "Two things are pretty clear," Smoke said.

"They're fat. That means no famine. They've not struck it rich, else they wouldn't have committed suicide."