CHAPTER XIV.

Five dead dogs, their stark bodies clearly outlined on the snow by a sparkling aurora, met Britton's startled gaze when he stumbled sleepily out of the cramped quarters of the tent. A cry of something like despair escaped him as he ran to examine them, turning the gaunt carcasses over and over.

Lessari heard the shout of perturbation and shuffled forth from under the flaps.

"What wrong have you?" he asked anxiously.

Rex stood aside and showed the corpses of their faithful animals.

"They're killed," he said briefly, "and you know what that means for us!"

White horror grew in the Corsican's brown face till it was blanched to a sickly hue. He fully realized that the loss of the dog-team had buried them alive in a frozen wilderness whose relentless cruelty would slowly crush their lives. In a dazed way, he fingered the bodies.

"Not any marks-not any marks," was his vacant observation.

"No," agreed Britton, who controlled himself with difficulty, "they have been neither knifed nor shot, yet some man's hand has done it. Gaucho and the rest of the huskies appeared as well last night as they ever did. No, Lessari, it wasn't an epidemic or even the bitter frost."

"How they are killed, then?" the Corsican inquired petulantly.

"That's the mystery," Rex woefully ruminated, aloud. "I wonder if that snake of a Thron-Diuck followed us and perpetrated this deed! You remember we heard what we thought was a dog-train coming behind us through the Klondike Canon?"

"Ah! yes," responded his companion, "that I recall-curse him!" Lessari's eyes were vindictive and full of a strange wildness as he stared at Britton.

"Of course that is only a supposition," said Rex, judicially, "but I know how jealous the Indian tribes are of gold-laden creeks. The Thron-Diucks know a good many secrets, but they will not divulge them, and fearing the wrath of his fellows if we located on this deposit, the red wretch may have repented his bargain and taken steps to prevent our profiting by it."

"Look for tracks!" exclaimed the Corsican, on sudden inspiration, but Britton shook his head.

"No use," he lamented, pointing to the pine-banked curve of the river, shining like glass, "the ice is too clean!"

"Curse him! Curse him!" exploded Lessari, again, growing more violent of speech.

"There's no use in cursing, either," Britton said seriously. "We're facing death, Lessari, but we must keep alive as long as possible. We have a tent and some food, and we'll make a strong fight."

The Corsican studied his dubious expression. "Go back?" he asked.

"It can't be done," said Rex. "Our provisions will not last half the time required to make the journey on foot, and there is nothing to shoot over those barren stretches."

"Go on where gold is, then?" Lessari inquired dismally.

"Yes," Britton answered, "our path lies over those five hills. We have only two chances, Lessari, and they are mighty slim! There is the chance of stumbling on the encampment of these Thron-Diuck Indians-they have retired somewhere in these mountains-and the possibility of finding game in the pine forests. The way lies yonder, and, if we find gold there, we'll stake it in case a miracle should bring us out of this trap."

Rex stirred the nose of his dead leader with the toe of his shoepack as he finished speaking, and Lessari saw him bend quickly.

"See that!" Britton exclaimed in quivering anger. He held out something between his fingers, and the Corsican recognized a piece of frozen whitefish covered with reddish powder.

"Poisoned!" he ejaculated with renewed horror.

"Yes, someone has fed them poisoned whitefish," said Rex, vehemently. "Gaucho had this in his teeth!"

Lessari broke out in a flood of denunciation. Britton quelled his own indignation and began untying the tent-ropes.

They thawed their canvas shelter from the banked ice and snow by means of several brush fires and loaded the sled. Any articles which could be dispensed with and which unnecessarily impeded them were cast away. The outfit was reduced to a minimum, and Rex packed all the remaining provisions carefully in one large sack. He preserved, too, the food intended for the dogs, for he thought they might easily find themselves in such straits as to be glad of it.

When all was securely lashed on the heavy Yukon sleigh, the two men harnessed themselves in the traces and started laboriously toward the circle of hills six miles away. For Lessari, they were six long and excruciating miles. He was weak and unfit, and though Britton took the heavier portion of the toil, the tramp told rapidly on his companion.

The river curved with such a sweep that they struck overland to shorten the distance. They bridged wide gullies full of blistered ice and swerved erratically with the loaded sled among rugged rocks and slippery hummocks that barred their path. Lessari continued to mutter and complain during the whole six miles, his mumblings toward the end becoming somewhat incoherent.

When they slipped down a long ravine which opened on the river right in the middle of the circling hills, the Corsican was staggering along with protruding tongue.

"You're fagged!" Rex exclaimed, noticing his plight. "Better rest here a minute!"

Lessari's answer was a vicious pull on the sleigh rope that nearly took Britton off his feet. They moved on because the Corsican would accept no delay, and Rex saw that the other's motive power was a sort of delirium which instilled unlimited feverish energy.

The pair of toilers emerged at last from the black rift and climbed an ice-capped ridge which fell like a sloping watershed in a southward direction. Around them the five beaver-house mountains rose strangely dome-like, the great river apparently losing itself in the bowels of the thousand ice chasms which furrowed the base of the valley-beds.

"This is the Klondike's source," Rex murmured as he contemplated the scene, "and it looks cold enough to kill you."

"Yes," sighed Lessari, "you have it right. But the gold-the gold is warm. Here I feel it!" He put his hand to his breast, and smiled contentedly.

"It's all that's keeping you warm," Rex gruffly commented. The observation quickly altered Lessari's expression, and he glared with a wild impenetrable look as they proceeded to skirt the fringing line of gravelled granite which was the shore of the now glacier-like stream.

Here the detached ice lay scattered about in huge blocks, an impediment to their feet, where it had glided with the shining rubble from the farther plateaus. In the shallow cup that the five hills formed, they met with a long, treacherous crevasse whose yawning depth of three hundred feet effectually cut off any further progress in a direct line. The great abyss seemed to possess a fascination for Lessari, and he trod dangerously near the edge to peer over.

"Don't do that!" Britton sharply cautioned, pulling him back. "A slip of your moccasin would put you at the bottom. We'll have to leave the sled here and see if there is any way round!"

The immense crevasse dipped from an overhanging glacier on one of the five mountains and slanted across the granite ridge they had been skirting. The two men left the Yukon sleigh standing, blocked, above the deep split and followed along the edge, searching for a place to cross. The slant of the ravine became more, acute, and, where the sides were jagged and shelved, they clambered down lower and lower till the whole formation suddenly broke upon a vast cavern that nosed into the river-bed and opened on the other side where the way was passable though extremely hard.

"It's rough going, but we must get across," Rex said, turning round to Lessari.

The latter was handling some rusty-looking pebbles which he had kicked out of the black cavern floorway.

"Ironstone!" he grunted scornfully, gazing at the cave side where similar fragments with glacier-worn edges stuck out.

"Let me see," cried Britton, hastily jumping forward. Lessari dropped the stones in his hand, and Britton's heart leaped at the weight of them.

"Ironstone!" he exclaimed, his voice all trembling. "My God, Lessari, it's gold!"

"Santa Virgin!" the Corsican screamed-"Gold!" He snatched frantically at the precious pebbles, chattering madly.

"I'm positive it is," Rex said excitedly, "but the flame-test will soon tell."

He produced a bit of candle from his coat and lit it with unsteady fingers. While Lessari held the specimens, he applied the flame to them. The heat singed the Corsican's hands, but he did not seem to feel any pain. Presently the rusty red covering of the pebbles disappeared as fine dust in the blaze, and Lessari gripped pure alluvial gold.

"Santa Virgin!" he screamed again. "We're rich! We're rich!"

Rex was off immediately, running about the cavern walls, making a hasty survey with his candle end. The walls, like the floor, were studded here and there with peeping corners of the precious ore for which he had endured two thousand miles of pitiless Yukon trails. Unbounded wealth lay within his grasp, and, with the triumph of the moment, he forgot that he was a millionaire in a death-trap.

"Go up for a spade, Lessari," he cried. "It is a mighty deposit-'big gold,' as the Thron-Diuck said."

The Corsican started up as a faint, rushing noise sounded above, like ice sliding upon ice.

"What's that?" asked Britton anxiously.

They listened, but heard no further echo. Rex appeared ill at ease.

"We're among glaciers, Lessari," he said, "and we must be careful. An avalanche might easily bury us in a hole like this. Get that shovel quickly!"

Lessari climbed up the lip of the ravine and disappeared, while Britton pottered about, speculating, as well as exulting, over the magnificent find. It was a showing that gave promise of surpassing such far-famed creeks as the Eldorado and Bonanza, and Rex gloated over his prospects. Standing in that deep cavern under the Klondike's bed, his thoughts went back to the green Sussex lands, Hyde Park in the London season, and the foaming Channel swells under the _Mottisfont's_ bows. He thought of the estates this buried gold would buy, the power it would bring, the restoration to public favor it would effect, and he laughed mirthlessly at the idea of purchasing his way into quarters of society and diplomacy which had closed their doors to him after his Algerian escapade.

A shrill cry from Lessari above interrupted his cogitations. He scrambled out of the cavern and clawed his way up the slippery side of the rift.

The Corsican was staring down into the abyss where they had left the sled. On his face there rested a look of terrified bewilderment, and he pointed into the gloomy depths.

"Gone!" he wailed-"gone down!"

Britton looked around for the sleigh, but it had vanished. A sharp fear assailed him as he dashed to Lessari's side and saw the mark of the runners on the powdered edge of the ravine where the laden sled had taken the leap.

"That's what we heard slide," Rex groaned, "and it has all our food!"

He went mechanically to the exact spot where the Yukon sleigh had stood. There lay the piece of granite which had blocked the runners, with the print of a husky's foot-pad in a minute snow-pocket at its side. Rex showed it to the Corsican, a swift, ominous wrath mantling his countenance.

"By heaven, Lessari, this is too much!" he cried. "It has been done purposely like-like the poison! There's a hand in the dark somewhere, and it means murder!"

The Corsican's harrowed senses appeared incapable of comprehending the statement.

"Starving-and rich!" he muttered wildly. "Rich-and starving!" He walked without fear to the brink of the chasm and began to lower himself over the rock with his hands.

"Here!" Rex roared in terror, rushing up. "What do you mean?"

"Stay back!" snarled the Corsican. "I go down to eat."

"The gold has turned your head!" Britton exclaimed. "You couldn't get down there for all the food on earth. Why, man, it's three hundred feet!" He sprang with a lithe movement and dragged the Corsican from his perilous position.

Lessari gave an inhuman cry and closed with Britton. Rex saw his eyes as they struggled and knew, with a feeling of chill horror, that they were the eyes of a madman.

"Ha!" gasped the demented fellow. "This time you go!"

He strove to throw Britton into the gulf, for resistance had resulted in giving his mania a different trend. The delirium gave him the strength of six men, and Rex found himself being gradually pushed into the crevasse. He strained and tugged with all the mighty power of his shoulders and corded arms, but it was of no avail against the frenzied Lessari. He tried another tack!

"Cool yourself, Lessari," he said soothingly, "and we'll get this sled." They could never get it, but he hoped the artifice might serve! Even that attempt at reason proved useless, for the Corsican redoubled his efforts. The eternal cold, his illness, the death of the dogs, the fever of the gold-finding, and the loss of their provisions had all combined to drive him mad.

"Devil!" he screamed, "you threw the food down!" And Rex knew he was indeed demented.

Fighting every inch of the way, Britton was forced toward the abyss. Three feet from it, he felt the necessity for desperate action. Watching his opportunity, he tripped Lessari on the iced rock, and they both fell heavily. Rex wound his arms about the Corsican, putting forth the last ounce of strength; that grip of steel would have held a giant, but it could not hold a madman. Lessari tore himself free and gained the uppermost position, with hands on Britton's throat.

Rex gazed into the rolling eyes, the wild, distorted visage of the Corsican, and felt himself shoved to the very brink of the crevasse. He wrenched violently at Lessari's wrists and arms, but they were as iron rods, and the movement brought his head out over the rim of the rock.

In one fleeting vision he saw the white, rising ice-fields cutting into the blue sky, with glacier-capped peaks banking up behind; he saw three of the five circling hills, their frozen gorges shining emerald in the sun; then, as Lessari's wolfish face came closer to his own and his arms were pressed down, the fingers felt the revolver butt in his belt.

In sheer despair he grasped it as a drowning man snatches at an oar. Its report cracked out and rattled in a hundred blatant echoes down the gorge. Lessari uttered a gasping groan and lurched to one side, his fingers lax and weak.

Britton wormed his shoulders back from the edge of the abyss, shifting the Corsican's weight with his legs, and arose in safety. His lungs were heaving with the tremendous strain like those of a spent Channel-swimmer, and the cords of his throat were taut.

When he turned over the limp form at his feet, he looked into Lessari's dead face.