CHAPTER XI

A MOVING SPOT ON THE HORIZON

But the outlaw’s teams of powerful dogs had endurance to exceed anything ever before witnessed by those who followed on their trail. Even Jennings was astonished by the manner in which they ate up the miles.

“Those dogs are devils!” he exclaimed after ten days of trailing them. “Devils is what they are and the prince of devils is their driver.”

Straight north the trail ran. There could be no mistaking it. In the soft snow of the forest, as Jennings had said, it might have been followed after three months had elapsed just as surely as on the day after it was made.

Up frozen streams, over ridges when streams were too rapid to freeze even in midwinter, down narrow Indian trails when snow-laden branches constantly showered the traveler with snow, the trail led. On and on and on. Always, as nearly as possible, due north.

At night, camp made and supper over, Curlie, his instruments before him, his receiver over his head, always sat on his sleeping-bag. With arms crossed over his feet, with head dropping forward, like Jack London’s primitive man, he listened for sounds. The sounds he expected to hear were from the air, not from the forest; that was the only difference. Otherwise he was that same primitive man, hunting and being hunted in turn. He was ever pursuing the outlaw, but who could tell when this same outlaw might face about upon the trail and become himself the hunter?

So they moved forward. Once Curlie received a thrill. On examining a camp lately deserted by the one who went before, he came upon a strange footprint, a single print of moccasin or skin-boot in the snow. Yet how it made his heart beat! This footprint was much smaller than that of the outlaw. Could this be the Whisperer? At first it seemed to him that there could be but one answer: “It is.” But at that time they were not beyond the creeks and rivers inhabited and traveled by Indians. Two Indian sleds had not long since passed that way. Might it not be that some Indian woman or girl had visited the camp of the outlaw? So Curlie’s certainty was destroyed, yet he still had a feeling that this might have been the footprint of the Whisperer.

Nothing more came to him from the air. The outlaw was silent. So too was the Whisperer. Night after night he caught only now and again a fragment of some song or some orchestra production being broadcasted thousands of miles away. Now and again there would come fragments of messages from afar, but never anything of importance.

From the air they learned nothing of the position of the outlaw, but by examining the signs of camp and trail Jennings, long accustomed to these signs, was able to announce to them each night that they were drawing closer, ever nearer to the man they sought. Now they were three days’ journey from him; now two, now one and a half, now only one. Faint and far distant they fancied they caught sight of the column of smoke rising straight above the forest from his camp fire.

Food became scarce. They had bought dried fish from the last Indian camp they had come upon. Now this had to suffice for both men and dogs. The outlaw, they knew by signs of the trail, had been more fortunate. Once, a reindeer straying from some distant domestic herd had forfeited life by crossing his path; at another time a caribou doe and her fawn had fallen victim to his rifle.

“It’s tough luck,” Jennings had exclaimed. “Him with all that fresh meat and us with none; but the tables will turn. We’re gaining, gaining every day. The soft trail for him becomes hard for us, after the night’s freeze. You’ll see, we’ll get him yet.”

“But where do you think he’s heading for?” Joe demanded.

“Can’t tell,” Jennings scratched his head. “Maybe some Eskimo village, maybe some reindeer camp and maybe—did you say Munson had a supply camp somewhere?”

“Yes.”

“Well, maybe he’s heading for that.”

“To use it or destroy it?”

“Destroy it?” Jennings stared at him in astonishment. “What would be the sense of destroying it? He doesn’t know he’s being followed; leastwise, I don’t think he does. Who’d think of destroying a winter’s supply of grub? It wasn’t Napoleon who burned Moscow, was it?”

Joe did not answer, but he and Curlie had their own private notions about the matter.

Then, just as they hoped to be closing in upon the prey, two things happened which postponed that great event for many days. They came suddenly out upon the open tundra, where the snow was hard-packed by the wind, where the trail was difficult to follow, and where, with as good a trail as the boys had to follow, the soft snow no longer gave them the advantage and the outlaw could make as good time as they—probably better, for his dogs were stronger.

“Bad luck to us,” Jennings stormed. “We’ll have to follow him straight to the Arctic and us with no food but a dozen pounds of fish. If we don’t watch out we’ll be in full retreat, eating our dogs as we go.”

Curlie, who had been sitting on his sled silently watching something in the distance, suddenly leaped to his feet exclaiming:

“It moves!”

“What does?” demanded Joe.

“Something off there to the left.”

“Think it’s him?”

“Who?”

“The outlaw.”

“No, I don’t. What I do think though is that it’s a reindeer or caribou.” A moment later he ordered: “Make camp right here. We’ve got to have meat and this is our chance.”

Looking to the clip in his rifle, he turned to go, then, after a second’s reflection he turned back, partly unpacked the sled and, having dragged out a strange-looking belt, buckled it on beneath his mackinaw.

“Just by way of extra precaution,” he smiled.

Atop the nearest ridge he turned to wave his hand. Had he known what events would transpire before he saw his companions again he would most surely have turned back. Not knowing, he shaded his eyes for a moment once more to locate the moving spot on the horizon, then went strolling down the low hill.