Part 18 (1/2)

The long whips cracked, Holfax gave his Indian yell to the dogs, they settled into their harness, and once more the sleds were being pulled northward. The dogs seemed to be in better humor after their unexpected meal of frozen fish, and they hauled well together.

It was a bleak and cheerless landscape that lay before the travelers.

The vast snow-covered plain stretched out before them, and, at their backs, was the desolate, black wilderness. Only the hope of gold kept their hearts stout.

Over the hard crust scurried the dogs, their toe-nails scratching the hard ice. Occasionally they yelped or barked, probably in protest at being made to haul such heavy loads. But Holfax kept them at their tasks.

As they advanced the day became dreary in the extreme. The sun was hidden by misty clouds, and the wind was cold and cutting. Then a few fine flakes of snow sifted down.

”Storm come,” remarked Holfax, tightening the robes about him.

”Guess you're right,” admitted Mr. Baxter. The moisture in the air, which preceded the storm, had, with his breath, condensed on his beard, and about his mouth was a ball of snow, as large as his two fists. He actually had to crush it off his beard before he could speak.

Then with a sudden fury the snow came down in a blinding cloud. Only the fact that the four dog teams were fastened together by a long piece of deer hide prevented them from becoming separated in the fog of frozen crystals.

”Can Holfax see to guide us?” shouted Fred, above the howl of the wind.

”I guess so,” answered Mr. Baxter. ”We'll have to trust to him, anyhow.”

It was the worst weather they had yet met with, and it was all the Indian could do to induce the dogs to continue. It needed the spur of his long whip, and his angry voice, calling to them in strange words, to keep them on the trot.

At last even the hardened Indian had to give it up. It was almost certain death to face that blast from the north any longer.

”Got to camp!” shouted Holfax, above the roar of the gale, and he began to unharness the dogs.

It was desperate work to get the tent up, but they managed to do it, and also to build a roaring fire of logs which the Indian dug out from under the snow with one of the shovels that had been brought along. Then, in the combined shelter of the tent and the upturned sleds, with a big pot of hot tea and some sizzling bacon, the gold hunters tried to forget their hards.h.i.+ps.

But it was not easy to do, and there were grave apprehensions that night whether they would not be frost-bitten before morning. The storm continued all the next day, and it was impossible to proceed. The dogs were buried from sight in big snowdrifts, and Holfax had one hand slightly frozen in digging them out to give them a feed of fish.

But troubles cannot last so very long at a time, and on the morning of the third day the sun came out once more.

”Forward!” cried Mr. Baxter. ”We are nearing the place, Fred. In a couple of days we ought to be able to tell whether we are on a wild-goose chase or not.”

They crossed the big plain by the next night, and camped at the foot of the mountain range where the gold was supposed to be buried. Mr. Baxter consulted the map, and thought they had come very close to the trail down which Stults had made his way to the settlement, where he had related his strange story.

By daylight Mr. Baxter's views were confirmed by Holfax, who closely examined the map. There was to be seen a tracing of a vast ravine, near which the party had made camp, and this ravine was one of the landmarks by which the place was known. Several expeditions, seeking the gold, had gotten thus far, but when they penetrated the mountains they lost all traces. Either the map was wrong, or they did not properly follow the directions. Would these fortune hunters have any better luck?

Breakfast was hurriedly eaten, the dogs harnessed, and a start made.

Travel had to be very slow now, and it was necessary for the adventurers to walk beside the sleds, as the dogs could not pull the pa.s.sengers and the heavy loads up the steep, snow-covered mountain.

They reached a shoulder of the incline, and stopped to rest. Here Mr.

Baxter consulted the map again.

”I think we had better bear off more to the left,” he said. ”It looks as if there was a stream there, but it's frozen over.”

Holfax agreed with him. It was now quite certain they were at least on part of the very ground mapped out by Stults. But whether they were near the hidden treasure was another question.

They followed the course of the stream as nearly as they could with the sleds, and, after a toilsome climb found themselves on a sort of level place.