CHAPTER XV

CURLIE VANISHES

As soon as morning broke, Joe and Jennings were out of the tent and away to make a search for their lost comrade.

With Joe’s team of four dogs and an empty sled they struck away up the hill in the direction of their old camp. They found the tattered handkerchief still fluttering in the breeze and Joe’s note safe beside it.

“Not been here,” said Joe. “Better drive out there in the direction he took when he went after that caribou.”

Taking his team to the right of the old camp site he led them backward and forward until Ginger, the leader, suddenly pricked up his ears and whined.

“He’s got the scent,” said Joe. “He’s on the trail. He’s a hound. Hounds are great for that. All we got to do is to follow. Ginger will find him.”

Away they raced after the dogs. Ginger did not hesitate for a moment until he led them straight to the pile of snow on which Curlie had cached his caribou meat, the part he could not carry away.

“Shows he got his game,” said Joe, looking with a feeling of pure joy at the pile of fresh meat.

As for the dogs, they stood on their haunches and howled with delight. Hacking off some small pieces Jennings threw one to each dog. These they swallowed at a gulp. He next piled the meat on the sled and lashed it there securely.

“Might as well take it along,” he explained.

Once more Joe took the dogs in a circle that they might pick up the trail. They found it at once and went racing away. But at the crest of the second hill they paused and refused to go farther.

Urge them as he might, lead them back and forth as he did, Joe could not get them to pick up the trail and go on.

The truth was that the trail did not go on. They had come to the spot where, after following the second caribou, Curlie had turned back. All tracks were snow blown but the scent was still there.

“Lost the trail,” said Jennings after a half hour of fruitless endeavor.

“Guess so,” said Joe, wrinkling his brow. “Guess the only thing we can do is to look around over the hills.”

They did “look around over the hills.” They searched until darkness began to fall, but discovered no trace of their missing comrade.

“Might as well go back to camp,” suggested Jennings. “He may have found his way back. He—he’s sure to turn up.”

There was a tone in his voice which suggested that Curlie might not turn up.

Hungry and weary, they were making their way back to camp when, on reaching the end of the willow clump farthest from camp old Ginger suddenly pricked up his ears and springing into the bushes attempted to drag his teammates after him.

“Hey there, you Ginger!” shouted Joe. “What you doin’ there. Got a rabbit er something?”

“Might be a trail,” said Jennings excitedly. “Cut him out of the team; hang on to his trace, follow him and see where he takes you.”

To Joe’s great astonishment the dog led him straight to a willow bush camp and the ashes of a burned-out fire.

“A camp!” he exclaimed. Then he shouted:

“Oh, Jennings! Tie up the other dogs and come in here.

“Do you think it could have been Curlie that made this camp?” he asked after the miner had looked it over.

“Might have. There’s nothing to prove he did or didn’t. Snow’s too hard to leave footprints and there’s no other sign.”

“Seems queer, doesn’t it? Not a hundred rods from our camp.”

“Question is,” said Jennings, “whoever he may be, where has he gone? If he’s a stranger he may have looted our tent by now.”

“That’s right,” said Joe, greatly disturbed.

“Let’s get out on the edge of the bushes and see if Ginger doesn’t pick up his trail.”

The old leader did pick up a trail at once. The trail led away from their camp. They were tired and hungry, but for all that, so eager were they to find some trace of Curlie and to solve this new mystery that they cached the meat in the tops of some stout willows and supperless turned their faces to the trail.

It was growing dark but since there was nothing to be done save to follow the dog leader, they marched on over hill and valley in silence.

At last they found they were approaching a second clump of willows. Involuntarily Joe reached for his rifle.

“May be camped there,” he whispered. “May be all right; may not. In a wilderness like this you never can tell.”

They approached the clump of bushes in silence. It was a small clump, soon searched. It was empty. They were about to leave it in disgust when Joe suddenly exclaimed:

“Look here at this!”

He pointed at some bushes from which the leaves had been completely stripped.

“Reindeer or caribou,” whispered the miner as if afraid of being overheard. Snapping on his flashlight, Joe examined the bushes and the ground.

“Believe you’re right. There are his tracks. He’s trampled the ground in a circle and eaten all the leaves in a circle too. How do you account for that?”

“Reindeer tied to the bushes.”

“Reindeer of the man we have been following,” said Joe thoughtfully.

The conclusion was so obvious that neither of them troubled to voice it. Curlie Carson had no reindeer, therefore it was evident that it had not been he whom they had been following on this new scent. Some man, who it was they could not even guess, had come to their willow clump and had camped there all night. Before coming he had tied his reindeer to this other clump and had left him there. In the morning he had returned to the reindeer and, having untied him, had driven away. At least this was the way Joe reasoned it out in his own mind. It was probable that Jennings’ conclusion was not far from the same.

“It is probable,” Joe went on to assure himself, “that this fellow is some Eskimo herder, who having left his reindeer to search for other reindeer or for rabbit and ptarmigan, has been caught in the storm and been obliged to camp in our willow clump for the night.”

All this fine reasoning was, as reasoning very often is, entirely wrong. But since neither Joe nor Jennings knew it to be wrong, they turned their reluctant dogs toward camp and wearily made their way back.

Joe was thoroughly downhearted. Curlie, he felt sure, had been frozen to death. There was nothing left but to go on without him, but without his genius to aid them it seemed probable that the expedition would end in utter failure.

The message he had caught the night before had been that of the Whisperer; the one which had so fortunately wakened Curlie from what might have been a fatal sleep.

“And the Whisperer was less than forty miles away,” Joe now told himself. “If Curlie had got back to camp we might by now have had our man in handcuffs. As it is, he has made another day’s travel and the race is still young. But,” he thought, with a feeling of determination, “with Curlie, we’d catch him yet.”