"What are you doing out this time of night?" Smoke inquired.
"Strolling?"
Before Bill Saltman could make reply, two running men joined the group.
These were followed by several more, while the crunch of feet on the snow heralded the imminent arrival of many others.
"Who are your friends?" Smoke asked. "Where"s the stampede?"
Saltman, lighting his pipe, which was impossible for him to enjoy with lungs panting from the run, did not reply. The ruse of the match was too obviously for the purpose of seeing the sled to be misunderstood, and Smoke noted every pair of eyes focus on the coil of cable and the crowbar. Then the match went out.
"Just heard a rumor, that"s all, just a rumor," Saltman mumbled with ponderous secretiveness.
"You might let Shorty and me in on it," Smoke urged.
Somebody snickered sarcastically in the background.
"Where are YOU bound?" Saltman demanded.
"And who are you?" Smoke countered. "Committee of safety?"
"Just interested, just interested," Saltman said.
"You bet your sweet life we"re interested," another voice spoke up out of the darkness.
"Say," Shorty put in, "I wonder who"s feelin" the foolishest?"
Everybody laughed nervously.
"Come on, Shorty; we"ll be getting along," Smoke said, mushing the dogs.
The crowd formed in behind and followed.
"Say, ain"t you-all made a mistake?" Shorty gibed. "When we met you you was goin", an" now you"re comin" without bein" anywheres. Have you lost your tag?"
"You go to the devil," was Saltman"s courtesy. "We go and come just as we danged feel like. We don"t travel with tags."
And the sled, with Smoke in the lead and Shorty at the pole, went on down Main Street escorted by three score men, each of whom, on his back, bore a stampeding-pack. It was three in the morning, and only the all-night rounders saw the procession and were able to tell Dawson about it next day.
Half an hour later, the hill was climbed and the dogs unharnessed at the cabin door, the sixty stampeders grimly attendant.
"Good-night, fellows," Smoke called, as he closed the door.
In five minutes the candle was put out, but before half an hour had pa.s.sed Smoke and Shorty emerged softly, and without lights began harnessing the dogs.
"h.e.l.lo, Smoke!" Saltman said, stepping near enough for them to see the loom of his form.
"Can"t shake you, Bill, I see," Smoke replied cheerfully. "Where"re your friends?"
"Gone to have a drink. They left me to keep an eye on you, and keep it I will. What"s in the wind anyway, Smoke? You can"t shake us, so you might as well let us in. We"re all your friends. You know that."
"There are times when you can let your friends in," Smoke evaded, "and times when you can"t. And, Bill, this is one of the times when we can"t.
You"d better go to bed. Good-night."
"Ain"t goin" to be no good-night, Smoke. You don"t know us. We"re woodticks."
Smoke sighed. "Well, Bill, if you WILL have your will, I guess you"ll have to have it. Come on, Shorty, we can"t fool around any longer."
Saltman emitted a shrill whistle as the sled started, and swung in behind. From down the hill and across the flat came the answering whistles of the relays. Shorty was at the gee-pole, and Smoke and Saltman walked side by side.
"Look here, Bill," Smoke said. "I"ll make you a proposition. Do you want to come in alone on this?"
Saltman did not hesitate. "An" throw the gang down? No, sir. We"ll all come in."
"You first, then," Smoke exclaimed, lurching into a clinch and tipping the other into deep snow beside the trail.
Shorty hawed the dogs and swung the team to the south on the trail that led among the scattered cabins on the rolling slopes to the rear of Dawson. Smoke and Saltman, locked together, rolled in the snow. Smoke considered himself in gilt-edged condition, but Saltman outweighed him by fifty pounds of clean, trail-hardened muscle and repeatedly mastered him. Time and time again he got Smoke on his back, and Smoke lay complacently and rested. But each time Saltman attempted to get off him and get away, Smoke reached out a detaining, tripping hand that brought about a new clinch and wrestle.
"You can go some," Saltman acknowledged, panting at the end of ten minutes, as he sat astride Smoke"s chest. "But I down you every time."
"And I hold you every time," Smoke panted back. "That"s what I"m here for, just to hold you. Where do you think Shorty"s getting to all this time?"
Saltman made a wild effort to go clear, and all but succeeded. Smoke gripped his ankle and threw him in a headlong tumble. From down the hill came anxious questioning whistles. Saltman sat up and whistled a shrill answer, and was grappled by Smoke, who rolled him face upward and sat astride his chest, his knees resting on Saltman"s biceps, his hands on Saltman"s shoulders and holding him down. And in this position the stampeders found them. Smoke laughed and got up.
"Well, good-night, fellows," he said, and started down the hill, with sixty exasperated and grimly determined stampeders at his heels.
He turned north past the sawmill and the hospital and took the river trail along the precipitous bluffs at the base of Moosehide Mountain.
Circling the Indian village, he held on to the mouth of Moose Creek, then turned and faced his pursuers.
"You make me tired," he said, with a good imitation of a snarl.
"Hope we ain"t a-forcin" you," Saltman murmured politely.
"Oh, no, not at all," Smoke snarled with an even better imitation, as he pa.s.sed among them on the back-trail to Dawson. Twice he attempted to cross the trailless icejams of the river, still resolutely followed, and both times he gave up and returned to the Dawson sh.o.r.e. Straight down Main Street he trudged, crossing the ice of Klondike River to Klondike City and again retracing to Dawson. At eight o"clock, as gray dawn began to show, he led his weary gang to Slavovitch"s restaurant, where tables were at a premium for breakfast.
"Good-night fellows," he said, as he paid his reckoning.
And again he said good-night, as he took the climb of the hill. In the clear light of day they did not follow him, contenting themselves with watching him up the hill to his cabin.
For two days Smoke lingered about town, continually under vigilant espionage. Shorty, with the sled and dogs, had disappeared. Neither travelers up and down the Yukon, nor from Bonanza, Eldorado, nor the Klondike, had seen him. Remained only Smoke, who, soon or late, was certain to try to connect with his missing partner; and upon Smoke everybody"s attention was centered. On the second night he did not leave his cabin, putting out the lamp at nine in the evening and setting the alarm for two next morning. The watch outside heard the alarm go off, so that when, half an hour later, he emerged from the cabin, he found waiting for him a band, not of sixty men, but of at least three hundred.
A flaming aurora borealis lighted the scene, and, thus hugely escorted, he walked down to town and entered the Elkhorn. The place was immediately packed and jammed by an anxious and irritated mult.i.tude that bought drinks, and for four weary hours watched Smoke play cribbage with his old friend Breck. Shortly after six in the morning, with an expression on his face of commingled hatred and gloom, seeing no one, recognizing no one, Smoke left the Elkhorn and went up Main Street, behind him the three hundred, formed in disorderly ranks, chanting: "Hay-foot! Straw-foot! Hep! Hep! Hep!"
"Good-night, fellows," he said bitterly, at the edge of the Yukon bank where the winter trail dipped down. "I"m going to get breakfast and then go to bed."
The three hundred shouted that they were with him, and followed him out upon the frozen river on the direct path he took for Tra-Lee. At seven in the morning he led his stampeding cohort up the zigzag trail, across the face of the slide, that led to Dwight Sanderson"s cabin. The light of a candle showed through the parchment-paper window, and smoke curled from the chimney. Shorty threw open the door.
"Come on in, Smoke," he greeted. "Breakfast"s ready. Who-all are your friends?"
Smoke turned about on the threshold. "Well, good-night, you fellows.
Hope you enjoyed your pasear!"