CHAPTER XIV

A STRANGE SIGHT

Before leaving his shelter Curlie hacked from the quarter of caribou meat a piece the size of a roast. This he managed to tie to his back. He then faced up the hill and, having reached the top, scrambled and slid to the valley beyond.

A wild battle with the storm followed. Panting, freezing, aching in every muscle, yet doggedly determined, he fought his way from hilltop to hilltop.

“Ought to be getting near the place,” he told himself as he found himself in a valley broader than any other he had crossed. “Nothing looks familiar. Can’t see far. Blamed snow keeps blowing so.”

Suddenly he stopped short. A black hulk loomed just before him. His heart skipped a beat? What was it? A cabin? Some Indian’s hut? A miner’s shack? What a boon in a wild night such as this!

He was not left long in doubt. Pressing eagerly forward for twenty yards he at last paused to exclaim: “Willows! Just willows with dead leaves on!”

But willows were something. They meant a shelter from the blasts of wind which had been slowly beating the life out of him. They meant, too, a possible fire.

“I’ll just get into them and see what can be done,” he mumbled as he once more beat his way forward.

So great was the relief from getting away from the knife-edged wind that he felt there must be somewhere among the willows a hidden fire.

“Might make one, at that,” he told himself.

Struggling through the dense growth, he came at last to an open spot some five yards in diameter which, he decided, was probably a frozen pool. About this the willows grew to a height of eight feet. The protection from the gale was complete.

“I’ll camp here till it blows over!” he thought as he began cutting down some slender willows with his sheath knife. These he spread on the smooth surface of the bare spot. Above them he built a tent-shaped shelter with only one end open. This completed, he began making a pile of dry twigs and leaves. Over this at last he piled larger, green branches. Finally he dug down in the soft snow to where deep beds of mosses lay. These were soft and dry.

“Good tinder,” he murmured as he unwrapped a package of matches and struck one of them.

Soon he had a crackling fire.

“That’s better,” he chuckled. “Much better! Might even do a little cooking.”

Chipping off strips of frozen meat, he sharpened a twig and strung them upon it. These he held before the fire until they were done to a delicious brown.

“Mm!” he exulted. “Couldn’t be better! I only wish the other boys had some. Wonder just where they are now.”

Had he but known it, they were camped in the other end of this willow clump, not a quarter of a mile away. Five minutes’ walk down the frozen stream would have brought him to them. But they had allowed their fire to die down and had crept into their sleeping-bags. No smoke came from them to him and the smoke from his fire was blown directly away from them; so they passed the night in ignorance of their close proximity to each other. When morning came they took courses which carried them miles apart.

As for Curlie, when morning broke and he found the storm had passed, he at once made his way to the top of the hill to reconnoiter. There strange things awaited him.

As he reached the crest of the hill he beheld, apparently on the ridge just beyond, a sight which caused his pulse to quicken. He saw two dog teams moving along at a steady walk. There were seven dogs in the first team and eight in the second. They were hitched white man fashion, two and two abreast. The sleds of the long, basket type were well loaded. Atop the first rode a powerfully built man, dressed in an Eskimo parka. On the second sled, with back to Curlie, rode another person. Dressed as this one was in an Eskimo costume, one might have said he was looking at a small Eskimo man, a woman or a girl.

“The outlaw and the Whisperer,” he murmured.

Involuntarily his feet moved forward. To approach them alone would seem madness. Yet, so great was his desire to unravel their secret that beyond question he would have risked it. But a strange thing happened at that moment.

The sled party had come to the end of the ridge. They should naturally have gone gliding down the slope but, to Curlie’s vast astonishment, they moved straight on into thin air.

“What”—his mouth flew open in astonishment.

The next instant he laughed.

“A mirage!”

And so it was. As he focused his eyes closely upon the scene he could detect the faint outline of the long ridge upon which the party was really traveling.

“Might be forty miles away,” he told himself, “and I was going to stop them. Well, anyway,” he mused, “it’s a glimpse that may aid us in the future.”

He set himself to studying every detail of the equipment—dogs, harnesses, sleds, clothing, everything. He even sat down on the snow and traced on an old envelope with the stub of a pencil the picture as he saw it.

Then, suddenly, the sleds dropped from view.

“Light changed or they came to the edge of the ridge,” he told himself.

Left to his own thoughts, he began to doubt that this was the outlaw and his companion. There were natives in this region. These people had been dressed as natives. True, the dogs were hitched white man fashion and the sleds were white man type, but the Eskimo had learned many things from the whites; they took pleasure in imitating this superior race of people.

“No,” he said to himself, “it might not have been them. I don’t really know that the Whisperer exists at all. I don’t—”

He paused suddenly, to stare away to the left of him where was another stream and a second long clump of willows. The wind had dropped to a whisper. The air was keen and clear. From the midst of this clump of willows, straight up a hundred feet there rose a thin, pencil-like column of white vapor which appeared to be smoke.

“Now who,” he asked himself, “can be camping down there?”

His heart beat fast. Was it Jennings and Joe? He would see.

Hurriedly, yet with utmost caution, he made his way down the hill toward that clump of willows from which the thin column continued to rise.