CHAPTER I

THE MAP IN THE CAVE

Three persons plodded along the snow-piled floor of a tiny canyon in the heart of the northern Canadian wilderness. The broad snow-shoes on their feet made their progress like that of so many huge crabs on a sea shore. In the fore was a tall, well-knit young man, whose weather-tanned face was that of Dick Kent, who for more than a year had sought and found adventure in the vast land where the sole guardians of the peace are the Royal North West Mounted Police.

“It can’t be very far from here,” he turned and spoke, his breath puffing out in white vapor.

Sandy MacClaren strained his eyes ahead. His stocky frame, no less hardened than that of his older chum, Dick Kent, seemed to bend forward with a little more eagerness as he replied:

“I hope we don’t pass it by.”

The man in the rear laughed. He was Sandy’s uncle, Walter MacClaren, an old Scotchman, and factor at Fort Good Faith for the Hudson’s Bay Company.

“I hardly think I could miss the cave,” he spoke. “I spent too many unpleasant hours in there without anything to eat.”

Dick Kent was about to respond to this, when he caught sight of what they were seeking, the mouth of a large cave in the wall of the canyon.

“There it is!” he cried, quickening his pace.

“Now for the map!” exulted Sandy.

All three removed their snowshoes at the mouth of the under-ground passage, which seemed to have been formed by the erosion of water in ages gone by, and, in moccasined feet, went along the dark corridor, lighting candles which they had brought with them from Fort Good Faith, not far south.

“Remember it’s the left branch when we get to the fork,” Sandy called to his chum.

“Yes, I guess I won’t forget that.”

Dick recalled a particularly exciting incident in that same cave, which would indelibly impress upon his memory the correct passage to the underground chamber, which was their destination.

The three hurried on down the main passage until ahead, in the dim glow of the candles, they could see where the main cavern branched. Almost there, Dick in the lead, paused.

“Wait,” he whispered.

Sandy and his uncle drew back.

“I thought I heard a sound in the passage to the right,” Dick said in a low voice.

They listened for a few seconds, but heard nothing.

“Probably some animal who has come in here out of the cold,” Sandy’s uncle observed.

“It sounded like footsteps,” Dick replied dubiously. “And you know we’ve plenty of reason to believe we’re not the only ones after what’s in this cave.”

Sandy agreed, but was anxious to go on, and since whatever sound had been detected by Dick’s sharp ears was not repeated, they continued down the passage to the left.

For several minutes they wound downward before they reached the widening of the passage and abruptly entered an underground chamber which seemed to have been fashioned by the tools of man.

“At last,” whispered Dick.

There was no sign of life evident, except those a week or so old, as they hurried to a particular portion of the rock wall and bent over it with their candles. What the light revealed was a confusing tracing of charcoal lines and crosses. It was the map of the location of the lost gold mine, and had been the purpose of their visit.

“I’ll copy it on this sheet of paper I’ve brought, so it will be clear to you boys,” Sandy’s uncle spoke, his voice sounding hollow in the silent, damp place.

He had just placed the paper on a smooth portion of the rock and touched the pencil to it, when a sound brought them to their feet. Somewhere along the passage they had come a stone had fallen. Someone was following them!

For the benefit of those readers who did not follow the adventures of Dick Kent and his chum, Sandy MacClaren, in the first volume of this series, a few explanations may clear up many obscure points. Several months before, they had with the aid of the mounted police, rescued Walter MacClaren from the control of Bear Henderson, an unprincipled enemy of the Hudson’s Bay Company, who had tried and failed to gain control of all the far north trading posts. In the incidents leading to the rescue they had met a particularly mysterious enemy, whom they called the Scar-Faced Indian.

At Fort Good Faith—when as a reward for their help during the Henderson trouble, Sandy’s uncle had consented to let them hunt for the lost mine—the scar-faced Indian had been detected eavesdropping at the door by Toma, a young Indian guide, who had accompanied the boys on many of their adventures. Toma had sworn vengeance against Scar-Face, since he believed his brother, Big John Toma, had been killed by the Indian. But, with his usual elusiveness, Scar-Face had escaped Toma, and the boys were left to wonder just what steps the Indian would take to thwart them in their attempt to find the mine.

The sound that had startled the three in the cavern chamber immediately brought before the minds of Dick and Sandy a vision of the evil face of the Indian.

“Shall we go back and chase whoever it is out of the cave?” Sandy queried tensely.

“I wouldn’t do anything like that,” Dick shook his head. “If it’s the scar-faced Indian he’ll have a trap set for us. We’ll just watch the entrance while your uncle copies the map. When that’s done, all three of us will be ready for trouble.”

Factor MacClaren considered Dick’s plan wise and went ahead with his work, while Dick and Sandy turned their attention to the entrance of the chamber.

Fearfully they waited, wondering just what might appear. It was very nearly an hour before Walter MacClaren finished copying the map, yet no one had come. Out of the corner of their eyes, Dick and Sandy watched the factor erase the charcoal tracings on the rock and turn to them.

“We’re ready to go back to the fort now,” he said.

“If we ever get back,” Sandy rejoined.

“Oh, I don’t think there’s much danger with the three of us,” Dick encouraged.

“Yes, but that scar-faced Indian is apt to have some one with him, and if they jump down on our heads from one of the ledges in this cave, we’ll have small chance of getting away.”

“Well, we’ve got to hope for the best and be prepared to fight with all there is in us,” Dick responded grimly, gripping his rifle, a 45.70 Winchester, and starting into the cavern.

Tensely Sandy followed, the factor taking up the rear with the precious map stuffed under his heavy bearskin overcoat.

Slowly they progressed back along the dark passage, scanning the shadows ahead and overhead for a sign of whatever had made the noise. A hundred feet from the chamber, a pair of eyes glowed out of the darkness. Dick raised his rifle, aiming at the gleaming points ahead. His sights came into line squarely and he fired.

The crack of his rifle was almost deafening.

“I got him!” shouted Dick, hurrying forward. “A bear!”

Sandy and his uncle had joined Dick over his kill. The large black body quivered under the candle light.

“I hated to do it,” Dick was sorry. “Poor old fellow!”

“He was probably wintering here somewhere,” Sandy’s uncle put in. “I wonder if he made that rock fall which we heard.”

“Probably did,” said Sandy.

“Well, I hope so,” the factor declared earnestly. “My old bones won’t stand much excitement. I’m not the tough customer I used to be when I was your age.”

All three went on, a little more confident that no danger lay ahead. Dick alone, had his suspicions of what lay before them, and he was about to advise the factor to walk between him and Sandy, when of a sudden, there sounded the fall of a body directly behind them. There came a grunting shout and Sandy’s candle was knocked from his hand, and the cavern plunged in darkness.

“Hey!” Dick whirled, his gun clubbed. The sound of scuffling was heard, and blindly he plunged back.

“Here he is,” Sandy’s muffled shout directed him. “He’s got Uncle Walter down, trying to take the map away from him.”

Sandy’s voice died away with a sudden _umph!_ Dick’s rearward leap was stopped by a heavy body. The shock almost knocked the breath out of him, but he clung on to the person he had collided with, feeling that it was neither Sandy nor the factor.

“Here, here! I’ve got him!” cried Dick, panting. Then he was overpowered and thrown heavily down. The sound of retreating footsteps sounded along the cavern in the darkness. Sandy’s candle flared up under a match.

“Are you all right, Dick?” was Sandy’s question.

Dick picked himself up and replied that he was. “Quick, find out if he got the map from your uncle!”

Factor MacClaren himself replied: “Luckily he didn’t, though he thinks he did. He got an old letter out of my inside breast pocket. The map is safe. Wonder who it was?”

“It must have been the scar-faced Indian,” Dick guessed the identity of their unknown assailant. “Say, he didn’t work slow, did he?”

“I’ll say he didn’t,” rejoined Sandy, rubbing one eye, which was already commencing to blacken from a blow received at the hands of the man in the dark.

“Let’s hurry and get out of this hole and back to the fort,” said Dick hastily.

All three hurried on and reached the blinding sunlight of the canyon without further mishap. An hour later they were in the big log house of the factor, gathered around the map, listening to Walter MacClaren’s directions regarding it. Toma, the young Indian guide who was to accompany them on the trail to the lost mine, had joined them. His dark, immobile face was over the table with the rest, when a tall, long-haired man entered. They looked up.

“Hello, Malemute,” Dick greeted the newcomer. “What’s the news?”

“Reckon we’re goin’ to have company on this here trip,” said the big man. “A constable of the mounted from Fort Dunwoody has just come in with instructions to capture a party of fur thieves, hidin’ in the territory you’re goin’ into.”

“Good! We may need him badly before we get through,” Dick replied.

Malemute Slade, an official scout for the mounted police, who through the effort of the factor had been detailed to accompany the boys on their trip northward, agreed with Dick, and ushered in a scarlet-coated, brisk-looking officer, at sight of whom both Dick and Sandy emitted exclamations of delight. It was no less than Corporal Richardson, an old friend, whom they had aided when he was wounded on the trail from Fort du Lac to Fort Dunwoody.

Corporal Richardson was as pleased as they at this reunion, and, at their invitation, joined them around the big table in the post living room.

That night, after a brain-taxing afternoon, following the factor’s instruction regarding the location of the lost mine, Dick lay wide awake until very late, thinking over the happenings of the day. He had a bunk curtained from the living room, not far from the entrance to MacClaren’s private sleeping room. He realized that Sandy’s uncle had taken the map with him, and half that kept him awake was a fear that another effort might be made to steal it. Lying there, looking up into the impenetrable darkness, it seemed that a hundred suspicious sounds were audible. But at last he fell fitfully asleep.

It seemed to Dick that he had slumbered for only a moment, when suddenly he was wide awake, his skin prickling as if some unknown presence were in the room. Quietly he lay there, listening in the darkness, forcing the dullness of sleep from his senses. What had awakened him?

Then his hand crept slowly to the head of his bunk where a rifle leaned. Some one was fumbling at Factor MacClaren’s door. As he strained his eyes in the dark, he could distinguish a shadowy figure crouching there.