CHAPTER XVI

THE GOLDEN QUEST

Florence was seated at the table the next day doing justice to a late afternoon breakfast of hot cakes and coffee when Jodie arrived.

“Plans have been changed,” he gave her a rare smile. “No whoopee, but a grand ball. That’s what it’s going to be. Full dress affair.”

“Full dress?” the girl’s lips parted in a gasp of surprise. Then with a sigh, “Oh, well,” she opened the draft in the small cook stove and set the flatirons on.

A half hour later she stood before Jodie garbed in the only silk dress she had with her, a full-length affair of midnight blue, trimmed in ermine.

“Keen!” was the boy’s comment. “Needs just one northern touch. You wait,” he burst through the door and was gone.

Fifteen minutes later he reappeared with a soft, bulky package under his arm.

“Here you are.” With one swift movement he cast away the paper wrapping and threw a gorgeous white fox fur about her neck. “And there you are,” he stood back admiringly. “Queen of the ball!”

“Jodie! Is it mine?” her eyes shone.

“Sure ’nuff. Present from the gang. Great stuff, I’d say—dog-musher one day, queen of the ball the next. Nothing like contrast in this jolly old world of ours.”

Jodie was not wrong. The winter nights are long in Alaska, but not too long for a jolly good time. A waxed floor, a peppy ten-piece orchestra, including two Eskimo drummers, a joyous company and sixteen hours of darkness, who could ask for more? Florence did not ask. She made the most of every fleeting hour. For, she thought in one sober moment, before another forty-eight hours have flown, we’ll be on the trail once more.

And so they were, off on the long trek that, they hoped, would bring them to the lost gold mine and to the end of good old Tom Kennedy’s lifelong dream.

They trailed away into the cold, gray dawn, two teams and four people—Tom Kennedy, Florence, Jodie, and At-a-tak. Not only had the Eskimo girl gladly loaned the gray team for the occasion, but she had offered to accompany them as seamstress for their native clothing.

Not a word was said as the city faded into the distance and blue-gray hills loomed ahead. They were off on the great quest, man’s age-long search for gold.

They had been trotting along behind their sleds for some ten miles when, as it will on Arctic trails, the wind began pelting them with hard particles of snow. This time, however, that wind was with them.

“Ah,” Jodie breathed joyously, “twenty below zero and the wind at our backs! What time we shall make!”

“But look at the whirl of that snow!” Florence was alarmed. “We’ll lose the trail.”

“No fear,” Tom Kennedy assured her. “The first few days of trail are like a paved road to an oldtimer. It’s the end that counts. We—”

“Look!” Florence broke in, pointing away before them. “The Phantom Leader.”

“Yes! Yes!” At-a-tak echoed. “The Phantom Leader.”

“There _is_ something,” Jodie agreed. “Something white. It moves. Now it is gone.”

“No! No! There it is,” Florence’s voice was eager. “Jodie! Grandfather! The Phantom Leader! That means good luck.”

“I hope so,” Jodie was straining his eyes for a better look. “There! See! He has stopped.”

“Or—or fallen,” Florence was ready to go racing on ahead of the team. Jodie held her back.

“You never can tell,” he counselled.

“There! There! He _is_ gone!” the girl cried a moment later.

“Over a ridge. We’ll see him again,” Tom Kennedy explained.

Indeed they did see him again and so close that Florence imagined herself looking at a pair of eyes burning their way out of a field of white.

“Oh! Ah!” she breathed.

“If that’s a dog,” Jodie exclaimed in a hoarse whisper, “he’s the whitest one I’ve ever seen.”

“There! He’s down!” Florence’s voice was tense with emotion. “Poor fellow! He must be hurt!”

“Who ever heard of a ghost being hurt?” Jodie laughed.

“There—there he goes!”

“This can’t last forever,” Jodie cracked a whip. His team sped on.

For a full half mile they burned up the trail, then with a suddenness that was startling, they all piled up in a heap at the back side of a snow bank. And there lying at Florence’s feet was one of the most piteous sights the girl’s eyes had rested upon: a collie dog, white as snow and so emaciated with hunger that every bone could be counted. He was whining piteously.

“Poor thing,” she murmured as she dug into her pack for cooked reindeer meat. “Poor old Phantom Leader!”

“Well, I’m dumbed!” was all Jodie could say. Tom Kennedy said nothing at all. At-a-tak stared as one must stare when, for the first time, he sees a ghost within his reach.

“Where did he come from?” Florence asked as the dog voiced thanks for the food offered him.

“Not from Nome,” said Kennedy. “No such dog there.”

“Some reindeer herder’s dog, or a miner’s, like Jack London’s Buck in the _Call of the Wild_,” said Jodie. “Find his story and you may learn of tragedy.”

No time now for such musings. The long trail lay ahead.

“We’ll take him along for luck,” said Florence. What luck? How could she know now?

“We’ll have to, of course,” they all agreed. “No true Alaskan ever leaves a starving dog on the trail.”

So the “Phantom Leader” was stowed away on top of the canvas packing on Jodie’s sled, and the little caravan once more moved on into the great unknown.

Long days followed, days of pushing forward along untracked rivers and over low mountains where no man lived, and no living creature moved save the fox, the wolf, and the snowshoe rabbit. Nights there were when the sky was like a blue sea filled with the lights of a thousand ships. An Arctic gale came sweeping down upon them. Blotting out the landscape, it drove them into camp. For two days and nights with their little sheet-iron stove beating back the frost, they lay on their sleeping bags listening to the beat of snow against their tent.

Their food supply dwindled. No wild caribou had been seen, but joy suddenly filled their hearts when at last they came to the spot where the river they followed forked.

“That,” Tom Kennedy exulted, “is the fork. Up this stream we must go.”

Did they have faith in his judgment? How could they doubt it? Yet Florence thought of their meager food supply and shuddered.

“Jodie and I will go out to look for game,” said Tom Kennedy.

“Sure. We’ll have some great luck,” Jodie agreed.

“I’ll set up camp and cut some wood.” Florence was no weakling. She could play a man’s part.

As for At-a-tak, she wandered away in search of snowshoe rabbits’ tracks. More than once her cunningly set snares had provided their pot with a delicious stew.

It was after Florence had set up camp and while the others were still away that she began hearing puzzling sounds. Coming from the distance, they sounded like the crackle of a wood fire. But there was no fire.

“What is it?” she asked of the white collie, the “Phantom Leader,” who lay on the snow close beside her. Well fed and cared for now, the dog had regained his strength. He had become a prime favorite with all. But oh! how he could eat! And in the harness he was just no good at all. Neither his nature nor his training fitted him for this.

“Come on, Phantom,” the girl murmured. “Earn your dinner. Tell me what those sounds are.”

For answer the dog rose to his haunches and growled. His sharp nose pointed straight down the trail over which they had come. Each moment the faint clatter increased in volume. At the same time a burst of wind swept up the valley and a swirl of fine particles cut at the girl’s cheek.

“Oh, dear! Another storm!” Still she waited and listened.

“Phantom! What is it, you—” Suddenly she broke short off. As her whisper ceased, her lips parted, her eyes bulged in astonishment, for at that instant from behind a clump of low spruce trees a head appeared. The head, long and white with small mottled brown spots, carried a pair of massive antlers. The creature stood staring at them, apparently quite unafraid.

“A—a caribou!” she whispered. “Food, plenty of food for dogs and men. All the rifles gone, too. And yet—”

The creature was beautiful. If a rifle were in her hands could she have killed it? She did not know.

Then like a flash the truth came to her, this was not a caribou but a reindeer, a domestic reindeer. Caribou are brown. Only reindeer are white.

“And there are others,” she said to the dog, “many more. Listen!” As she stood there in silence there came again that confused crack-cracking. That, she realized, was many reindeer crack-cracking their hoofs as they trotted over the snow.

“Reindeer,” she whispered in awed excitement, “many reindeer here, two hundred miles from the nearest range. Something wrong somewhere, that’s sure!”

Truly here was a situation. Her companions were gone. Here was a problem to be solved.

“They might be back any time,” she told herself, “but they may not come before the storm breaks.” Something seemed to tell her that here was a matter that needed looking into. Had this herd wandered away, been stampeded by wolves, or—her heart skipped a beat—had some northern outlaws driven the reindeer into the wilds that they might live upon them and perhaps later sell the unmarked yearlings?

“It might be Eskimo,” she thought. Her grandfather had told how the deer had at one time belonged to the Government and to the Eskimo, and how white men had gained control of great herds, how some of the Eskimo, feeling themselves defeated, had turned bitter and at one time or another killed deer that did not belong to them.

“It might be dangerous to go and see what it’s all about,” she told herself. “Might—”

A flash of light had caught her eye, a gleam from the white reindeer’s ear. “A marker,” she exclaimed. “John Bowman’s marker! Ah, that’s different!” She had seen Bowman’s deer at Nome. “Come on, Phantom!” she called to the dog. “We’ll have to look into this.”

Inspired by this call to service, Florence climbed up the slope. Then, crouching low that she might not startle the reindeer, she followed back along the trail.

Behind her, sticking close to her heels, was the “Phantom Leader.”

“Good old Phantom,” she murmured. The dog let out an all but inaudible yap-yap.

A biting breath of air struck her cheek. Snow rattled against her parka. The storm was on its way.

Creeping down the slope, she peered through the branches. “Reindeer,” she muttered, “still more reindeer. There must be hundreds! Must be—”

Suddenly she drew back among the dark boughs. Had she caught a glimpse of a skulking figure? She could not be sure. The dog crowded close to her, trembling. Why did he tremble? Could he sense danger?

Creeping back up the ridge, she once more turned her back upon her camp. She must make some fresh discoveries. But the storm was beginning in earnest now. All about her were swirls of blinding snow. Now she could see for a distance of forty yards, and now but a few feet.

“Wild spot this,” she said to the dog. “Reindeer will be stampeded by the storm. They may rush over the ridge and perish.”

Slowly a plan was forming in her mind. She would get behind the herd, then drive it forward to the narrow sheltered valley at the edge of which their camp was made.

“They’ll be safe there,” she told herself. But if there were outlaws, marauders behind this herd? She shuddered. Ah, well, she must risk it. She owed that to her friend and her grandfather’s friend, John Bowman.

For a quarter of an hour she battled her way against the storm. Then, seized with sudden fear lest she lose contact with the herd, she hurried down the slope.

She had just reached the bed of the frozen stream when, for a space of seconds, the air cleared. Through that half-light she saw two dark figures. They were moving up the slope. Were they a man and a sled, or two men? She could not be sure. A second more and all was blotted out in one wild whirl of snow.

Looking down, she saw what appeared to be an answer to her question—a sled track in the snow. Bending down, she examined it carefully. “Eskimo sled,” was her verdict. The tracks were too close together for a white man’s sled, and the runners too broad. They were wooden runners, made of driftwood.

Already she was out of touch with the herd. Whatever happened, she must hasten on.

“Phantom, where are you?” she exclaimed in sudden consternation. Where indeed was the collie? He was gone, had vanished into the ever-increasing storm. A feeling of loneliness, almost of despair, swept over her. Why had she taken such chances? In a strange land one must exercise caution.

“Got to get going.” As she hurled herself forward before the storm, she was fairly lifted from her feet by the violence of the wind. Now spinning like a top and now sailing along like a kite over the snow, she missed a spruce tree by inches, went hurtling over some young firs, then tripped over tangled branches to at last land sprawling on all fours over a snow bank.

“Whew! What a—” she broke short off to listen. What was that? A dog barking?

“Yes! Yes!” She was on her feet. “It’s Phantom and I know the meaning of that bark. He hasn’t started a rabbit, nor is he afraid. He’s driving cattle, reindeer! And why not? He’s a collie.”

Once again, more cautiously, she took up the trail. Her course was clear enough now. All she had to do was to follow on, perhaps give the dog a word of encouragement now and then. She would herd the reindeer up the ravine. Soon they would be at camp. From that point the deer could spread out in the narrow protected valley.

“Yes, that’s it,” she said aloud. “There’s Phantom now.”

She caught fleeting glimpses of the dog. Now he was here, now there, and there. What a fast worker he was! The moment a deer lagged, he was at its heels.

And the reindeer? She saw them indistinctly, like a picture out of focus. But there must be hundreds of them. How had they been driven all this way? And why?

She cast apprehensive glances to right, left, then back. There had been something secretive about the way that man back there on the trail had acted. She saw no one now. The snow fog was closing in.

“Go, Phantom! Go after them!” she cried. “Good old Phantom!” How glad she was that they had responded to the Phantom’s appeal and had saved him.

Just then she caught the gleam of a light, and heard a shout. It was her grandfather’s voice. She was nearing the camp. It was all right now. The deer were safe from the storm and from—from what else? She could not be sure. Only one thing she knew, they were John Bowman’s reindeer and John Bowman was her friend.

An hour later, with the wind tearing and cracking about their tent, the four of them, grandfather, Jodie, Florence, and At-a-tak, sat on their sleeping bags in awed silence listening to the rush and roar of the storm. At their feet, dreaming day-dreams, lay the collie who on that day had covered himself with glory. That splendid herd was safe from the storm. Tomorrow when the storm had gone roaring on towards the north, they would begin unraveling the mystery that had to do with the presence of these reindeer in this wild, uninhabited region.

“Wandered away,” said grandfather.

“Somebody stole,” said At-a-tak.

“Perhaps the regular herders are taking them somewhere,” said Jodie.

But who could surely know? They must wait and see.