"Don"t get scairt, son. It"s only the aurora. It"s like they said--Carlson, an" one or two mo" I"ve hea"d talk. The blood-red aurora in the night time, an" the thousan" suns in the day." Waseche"s sleeping bag was close against his own, and the sound of his voice rea.s.sured the terrified boy. Together, in silence, they watched the awful spectacle. Red lights--scarlet, crimson, vermilion flashed upon the snow, and among the far-off peaks which stood out distinctly above the farther wall of the long stretch of canyon that their viewpoint commanded. Upon the green ice at the entrance to the cavern the lights showed violet and purple. The boy stared spellbound at the terrible splendour of the changing lights, while above the hiss and crackle of the aurora he could hear the whimpering and moaning of the terrified dogs. He shrank back into his sleeping bag, pulling the flap tight to keep out the awful sights and sounds, and lay for hours waiting for something to happen. But nothing did happen and when he awoke again it was day. The dogs had ceased to whine, and Waseche Bill was moving about in the cave. The man had hung a robe over the entrance, but around the edges Connie could see narrow strips of light. The air was oppressive and heavy. His head ached. The acrid smell of smoke permeated the interior of the cavern and Connie wriggled from his sleeping bag and, while Waseche busied himself with the coffee and bacon, he broke out a bale of fish for the dogs.
"Cut "em down to half ration, son," warned the man, eyeing the scanty supply. "We got to get out of this heah Lillimuit--an" we got to get out on what we got with us. I don"t reckon they"s a livin" critteh in the whole blame country, "cept us, an" we got to go easy on the grub."
"I heard a fox bark the other night," ventured the boy.
"Yo" won"t get fat on fox bahks," grinned the man, "an" that"s all the clost yo" even get to "em. Outside of white goats, them foxes is about the hah"dest vahmint to get a shot at they is."
"Aren"t we going to hit the trail?" asked the boy in evident surprise, when, after breakfast, instead of packing the outfit, Waseche lighted his pipe and stretched out on a robe.
"Not _this_ day, we ain"t," replied the man; "An" me"be not tomorrow--if the wind don"t come. Do yo" know how fah we"d get today?"
"How far?"
"I do"no--a hund"ed steps, me"be--me"be half a mile--"twouldn"t be fah."
"Tell me what"s the matter, Waseche. What"s going to happen? And why have you closed up the door?"
"It"s the _white death_," answered the man in an awed tone. "Nothin"
won"t happen if we stay inside. I"ve hea"d it spoke of, only I somehow--I neveh believed it befo". As fo" the robe--hold yo" breath an"
peek out through that crack along the aidge. Hold yo" breath, mind--_don"t breathe that air!_"
Connie filled his lungs and drew back the edge of the robe. Instantly his face seemed seared by the points of a million red-hot needles. He scarcely noticed the pain, for he was gazing in awestruck wonder where a thousand suns seemed dancing in the cloudless sky. As upon the previous day, the air was filled with dancing white specks, and the suns glared with a gla.s.sy, yellow brightness. They looked wet and shiny, but their light seemed no brighter than the light of a single sun. No blue sky was visible, and the mountain peaks, even the nearer ones, were nowhere to be seen. The whole world seemed enveloped in a thick haze of sickly yellow.
He let go the edge of the robe and drew back from the opening.
"Gee whiz! but it"s cold," he exclaimed, rubbing his stinging cheeks.
"How cold is it, pardner?" For answer Waseche shifted his position, reached swiftly beneath the bottom of the robe, and withdrew from the outside a small spirit thermometer which he held up for the boy"s inspection. It was frozen solid!
CHAPTER X
THE _IGLOO_ IN THE SNOW
"Now, kid," said Waseche Bill the following morning, "we got to make tracks fo" the Tatonduk. We got too many dogs, an" we got to cut down on the feed. I hate to do it--on the trail--but they"s no two ways about it. Three or fo" days ort to put us at the divide. I made a _cache_ the"h comin" in an" we"ll be all right when we strike it."
The two stood in front of the cavern, breathing deeply of the clear, pure air. A stiff breeze was blowing from the south-west, and the day was warm and pleasant. The sun had not yet risen, and as the dogs swung into the trail Connie glanced at the little thermometer lashed firmly to the back of his sled. It registered twenty degrees below zero, an ideal temperature for trail travel and the boy cracked his whip and yelled aloud in the very joy of living.
At the mouth of the canyon they swerved in a north-westerly direction, toward the northernmost reach of the Ogilvie Range. All day they mushed across the wide caribou barrens and flat tundra that separated the great nameless range behind them from the high mountains to the westward that lay between them and Alaska. For, upon ascending the Tatonduk, they had pa.s.sed out of Alaska into the unmapped Yukon district of sub-arctic Canada. Evening of the second day found them among the foothills of the mountains. Patches of stunted timber appeared and the lay of the land forced them to keep to the winding beds of frozen creeks and rivers. The end of the next day found them camped on the snow-covered ice of a small river. Waseche divided the few remaining fish, threw half of them to the dogs, and sat down beside the boy, who had prepared a meal of caribou _charqui_ and coffee:
"Seems like this _must_ be the creek--but I ain"t sho". I thought the one we tackled yeste"day was it, too--but it petered out on us."
"I don"t know," replied Connie, "I thought I"d remember the back trail, but since the big snow everything looks different. And I was in an awful hurry to catch up with you, besides."
"Sho", kid, I know. I"d ort to took mo" pains myself, but I wasn"t so pa"ticlah about gettin" back--then. Anyways, we"ll try this one. We got to watch the grub now, fo" sho". Them _malamutes_ is hongry! Day afteh tomorrow, if we don"t find the _cache_, we"ll have to kill a dawg."
Connie nodded.
"We"ll find it, all right. This looks like the creek. Still, so do they all," he added reflectively.
The next day was a repet.i.tion of the day preceding. They followed the bed of the creek to its source in a narrow canyon which lost itself upon the steep side of a gigantic mountain. Wearily, they retraced their steps and once again among the foothills, turned to the northward.
"They"s no dodgin" the truth, son," said Waseche gloomily, as they mushed on, scrutinizing the mouths of creeks in a vain endeavour to locate a landmark. "We"re lost--jest na"chly plumb _lost_--like a couple of _chechakos_."
"The divide"s _somewhere_," answered the boy, bravely. "We"ll find it."
"Yes, it"s somewhe"h. But how many thousan" of these creeks, all jest alike, do yo" reckon they is? An" how about grub?"
"I hate to kill a dog," the boy said.
"So do I, but the rest has got to eat. I know them wolf-dawgs; onct they get good an" hongry they"ll begin tearin" one another up--then they"ll lay fo" _us_--folks is meat, too, yo" know."
Night overtook them on a small wooded plateau and they camped in the shelter of a dense thicket of larch and stunted spruce. At the very edge of the thicket was a low white mound, its crown rising some three or four feet above the surrounding level. The sleds were drawn up at the foot of this mound, the dogs unharnessed, and, unslinging his axe, Waseche Bill went to the thicket for firewood, leaving Connie to unpack the outfit. The boy noted as he spread the robes that the mound was singularly regular, about twelve feet in diameter at the base and having evenly rounded sides--entirely different from the irregular ridges and spurs of the foothills.
"You"re a funny little foothill," he murmured, "way off by yourself. You look lonesome. Maybe you"re lost, too--in the big, white Lillimuit."
Waseche returned with the wood and lighted the fire while Connie tossed the last of the fish to the dogs. Supper was finished in silence, the fire replenished, and the two partners lay back on the robes and watched the little red sparks shower upward from among the crackling flames.
"We ain"t the first that"s camped heah," remarked Waseche, between noisy puffs at his pipe. "Yondeh in the thicket is stubs wheah fiahwood"s be"n chopped--an" one place wheah consid"able poles has be"n cut. The axe mawks is weatheh-checked, showin" they was cut green. But it wasn"t done this yeah--an" me"be not last."
"I wonder who it was? And what became of them? What did they want with poles?"
"Built a _cache_, me"be--mout of be"n a sled--but mo"n likely a _cache_.
We"ll projec" around a bit in the mo"nin". Me"be we c"n find out who they was, an" wheah they was headin". Me"be they"ll be a trail map to some _cache_ befo" this or to the divide."
"I hope we will find a _cache_. Then we wouldn"t have to kill a dog."
Waseche"s brow puckered judicially:
"Yes--we would. Yo" see, son, it"s like this: We got mo" dawgs than is needful fo" a two-man outfit. If we was down to six dawgs, or even seven, an" one sled, an" they was weak or stahvin, then we could bust a fish _cache_--but to feed twenty-one dawgs--that ain"t right. Likewise with ouah own grub--a man"s supposed to take from anotheh man"s _cache_ jest so much as is needful fo" life; that is, what will get him to the neahest camp--not an ounce mo". This is the unwritten law of the Nawth.
An" a good law. Men"s lives is staked on a _cache_--an" that"s why when, onct in a while, a man"s caught robbin" a _cache_--takin" mo"n what"s needful fo" life, they ain"t much time wasted. He gets--what"s comin" to him."
The dogs had licked up the last crumbs of their scant ration and, burrowing into the snow, wrapped themselves snugly in their thick, bushy tails. Old Boris and Slasher dug their beds in the side of the mound near where Connie had spread his robes. The boy watched them idly as they threw the hard, dry snow behind them in volleys, and long after the other dogs had curled up for the night, the sound of old Boris" claws rasping at the flinty snow could be heard at the fireside.
"Boris is digging _some bed_!" exclaimed the boy, as he glanced toward the tunnel from which emerged spurts of sand-like snow.
"He ain"t diggin" no bed," answered Waseche. "He smells somethin"." Even as he spoke the snow ceased to fly, and seemingly from the depths of the earth, came the sound of a m.u.f.fled bark. Instantly Slasher was on his feet growling and snarling into the tunnel from which the voice of old Boris could be heard in a perfect bedlam of barking.
"Oh! It"s a cave! A cave!" cried Connie, pushing aside the growling wolf-dog. "Maybe it"s the _cache_!"
Waseche Bill finished twisting a spruce twig torch. He shook his head dubiously:
"Come heah, Boris!" he called, sharply, "come out of that!" The old dog appeared, barking joyously over his discovery. Waseche Bill lighted his torch at the fire, and pushing it before him, wriggled into the opening.
After what, to the waiting boy, seemed an age, the man"s head appeared at the entrance, and he pulled himself clear.
"What is it?" inquired the impatient boy. "What did you find?"
The man regarded him gravely for a moment, and then answered, speaking slowly: