"Wrong. Guess again."
"It"s somebody else"s."
"You win. I bought it for a price from one of the clerks at the A. C.
Company."
"It"s a shame clerks are so narrow-shouldered," she sympathized. "And you haven"t told me what you think of MY outfit."
"I can"t," he said. "I"m out of breath. I"ve been living on trail too long. This sort of thing comes to me with a shock, you know. I"d quite forgotten that women have arms and shoulders. To-morrow morning, like my friend Shorty, I"ll wake up and know it"s all a dream. Now, the last time I saw you on Squaw Creek--"
"I was just a squaw," she broke in.
"I hadn"t intended to say that. I was remembering that it was on Squaw Creek that I discovered you had feet."
"And I can never forget that you saved them for me," she said. "I"ve been wanting to see you ever since to thank you--" (He shrugged his shoulders deprecatingly). "And that"s why you are here to-night."
"You asked the Colonel to invite me?"
"No! Mrs. Bowie. And I asked her to let me have you at table. And here"s my chance. Everybody"s talking. Listen, and don"t interrupt. You know Mono Creek?"
"Yes."
"It has turned out rich--dreadfully rich. They estimate the claims as worth a million and more apiece. It was only located the other day."
"I remember the stampede."
"Well, the whole creek was staked to the sky-line, and all the feeders, too. And yet, right now, on the main creek, Number Three below Discovery is unrecorded. The creek was so far away from Dawson that the Commissioner allowed sixty days for recording after location. Every claim was recorded except Number Three below. It was staked by Cyrus Johnson. And that was all. Cyrus Johnson has disappeared. Whether he died, whether he went down river or up, n.o.body knows. Anyway, in six days, the time for recording will be up. Then the man who stakes it, and reaches Dawson first and records it, gets it."
"A million dollars," Smoke murmured.
"Gilchrist, who has the next claim below, has got six hundred dollars in a single pan off bedrock. He"s burned one hole down. And the claim on the other side is even richer. I know."
"But why doesn"t everybody know?" Smoke queried skeptically.
"They"re beginning to know. They kept it secret for a long time, and it is only now that it"s coming out. Good dog-teams will be at a premium in another twenty-four hours. Now, you"ve got to get away as decently as you can as soon as dinner is over. I"ve arranged it. An Indian will come with a message for you. You read it, let on that you"re very much put out, make your excuses, and get away."
"I--er--I fail to follow."
"Ninny!" she exclaimed in a half-whisper. "What you must do is to get out to-night and hustle dog-teams. I know of two. There"s Hanson"s team, seven big Hudson Bay dogs--he"s holding them at four hundred each.
That"s top price to-night, but it won"t be to-morrow. And Sitka Charley has eight Malemutes he"s asking thirty-five hundred for. To-morrow he"ll laugh at an offer of five thousand. Then you"ve got your own team of dogs. And you"ll have to buy several more teams. That"s your work to-night. Get the best. It"s dogs as well as men that will win this race. It"s a hundred and ten miles, and you"ll have to relay as frequently as you can."
"Oh, I see, you want me to go in for it," Smoke drawled.
"If you haven"t the money for the dogs, I"ll--" She faltered, but before she could continue, Smoke was speaking.
"I can buy the dogs. But--er--aren"t you afraid this is gambling?"
"After your exploits at roulette in the Elkhorn," she retorted, "I"m not afraid that you"re afraid. It"s a sporting proposition, if that"s what you mean. A race for a million, and with some of the stiffest dog-mushers and travellers in the country entered against you. They haven"t entered yet, but by this time to-morrow they will, and dogs will be worth what the richest man can afford to pay. Big Olaf is in town.
He came up from Circle City last month. He is one of the most terrible dog-mushers in the country, and if he enters he will be your most dangerous man. Arizona Bill is another. He"s been a professional freighter and mail-carrier for years. If he goes in, interest will be centered on him and Big Olaf."
"And you intend me to come along as a sort of dark horse."
"Exactly. And it will have its advantages. You will not be supposed to stand a show. After all, you know, you are still cla.s.sed as a chechako.
You haven"t seen the four seasons go around. n.o.body will take notice of you until you come into the home stretch in the lead."
"It"s on the home stretch the dark horse is to show up its cla.s.sy form, eh?"
She nodded, and continued earnestly: "Remember, I shall never forgive myself for the trick I played on the Squaw Creek stampede unless you win this Mono claim. And if any man can win this race against the old-timers, it"s you."
It was the way she said it. He felt warm all over, and in his heart and head. He gave her a quick, searching look, involuntary and serious, and for the moment that her eyes met his steadily, ere they fell, it seemed to him that he read something of vaster import than the claim Cyrus Johnson had failed to record.
"I"ll do it," he said. "I"ll win it."
The glad light in her eyes seemed to promise a greater meed than all the gold in the Mono claim. He was aware of a movement of her hand in her lap next to his. Under the screen of the tablecloth he thrust his own hand across and met a firm grip of woman"s fingers that sent another wave of warmth through him.
"What will Shorty say?" was the thought that flashed whimsically through his mind as he withdrew his hand. He glanced almost jealously at the faces of Von Schroeder and Jones, and wondered if they had not divined the remarkableness and deliciousness of this woman who sat beside him.
He was aroused by her voice, and realized that she had been speaking some moments.
"So you see, Arizona Bill is a white Indian," she was saying. "And Big Olaf is a bear wrestler, a king of the snows, a mighty savage. He can out-travel and out-endure an Indian, and he"s never known any other life but that of the wild and the frost."
"Who"s that?" Captain Consadine broke in from across the table.
"Big Olaf," she answered. "I was just telling Mr. Bellew what a traveller he is."
"You"re right," the Captain"s voice boomed. "Big Olaf is the greatest traveller in the Yukon. I"d back him against Old Nick himself for snow-bucking and ice-travel. He brought in the government dispatches in 1895, and he did it after two couriers were frozen on Chilkoot and the third drowned in the open water of Thirty Mile."
Smoke had travelled in a leisurely fashion up to Mono Creek, fearing to tire his dogs before the big race. Also, he had familiarized himself with every mile of the trail and located his relay camps. So many men had entered the race that the hundred and ten miles of its course was almost a continuous village. Relay camps were everywhere along the trail. Von Schroeder, who had gone in purely for the sport, had no less than eleven dog-teams--a fresh one for every ten miles. Arizona Bill had been forced to content himself with eight teams. Big Olaf had seven, which was the complement of Smoke. In addition, over two score of other men were in the running. Not every day, even in the golden north, was a million dollars the prize for a dog race. The country had been swept of dogs. No animal of speed and endurance escaped the fine-tooth comb that had raked the creeks and camps, and the prices of dogs had doubled and quadrupled in the course of the frantic speculation.
Number Three below Discovery was ten miles up Mono Creek from its mouth.
The remaining hundred miles was to be run on the frozen breast of the Yukon. On Number Three itself were fifty tents and over three hundred dogs. The old stakes, blazed and scrawled sixty days before by Cyrus Johnson, still stood, and every man had gone over the boundaries of the claim again and again, for the race with the dogs was to be preceded by a foot and obstacle race. Each man had to relocate the claim for himself, and this meant that he must place two center-stakes and four corner-stakes and cross the creek twice, before he could start for Dawson with his dogs.
Furthermore, there were to be no "sooners." Not until the stroke of midnight of Friday night was the claim open for relocation, and not until the stroke of midnight could a man plant a stake. This was the ruling of the Gold Commissioner at Dawson, and Captain Consadine had sent up a squad of mounted police to enforce it. Discussion had arisen about the difference between sun-time and police-time, but Consadine had sent forth his fiat that police-time went, and, further, that it was the watch of Lieutenant Pollock that went.
The Mono trail ran along the level creek-bed, and, less than two feet in width, was like a groove, walled on either side by the snowfall of months. The problem of how forty-odd sleds and three hundred dogs were to start in so narrow a course was in everybody"s mind.
"Huh!" said Shorty. "It"s goin" to be the gosh-dangdest mix-up that ever was. I can"t see no way out, Smoke, except main strength an" sweat an"
to plow through. If the whole creek was glare-ice they ain"t room for a dozen teams abreast. I got a hunch right now they"s goin" to be a heap of sc.r.a.ppin" before they get strung out. An" if any of it comes our way, you got to let me do the punchin"."
Smoke squared his shoulders and laughed non-committally.
"No, you don"t!" his partner cried in alarm. "No matter what happens, you don"t dast hit. You can"t handle dogs a hundred miles with a busted knuckle, an" that"s what"ll happen if you land on somebody"s jaw."
Smoke nodded his head. "You"re right, Shorty. I couldn"t risk the chance."
"An" just remember," Shorty went on, "that I got to do all the shovin"
for them first ten miles, an" you got to take it easy as you can. I"ll sure jerk you through to the Yukon. After that it"s up to you an" the dogs. Say--what d"ye think Schroeder"s scheme is? He"s got his first team a quarter of a mile down the creek, an" he"ll know it by a green lantern. But we got him skinned. Me for the red flare every time."