Neither gold-dust nor nuggets could be identified. There would be no way of proving the story false. The only evidence against them would be that they had left at Kusiak and this was merely of a corroborative kind.
There would be no chance of convicting them upon it.
But to strike for Seattle was to throw away all pretense of innocence.
Fugitives from justice, they would have to disappear from sight in order to escape. The hunt for them would continue until at last they were unearthed.
One fork of the road led to comparative safety; the other went by devious windings to the penitentiary and perhaps the gallows. The Scotchman put himself in the place of the men he was trailing. Given the same conditions, he knew which path he would follow.
Macdonald took the trail that led down to the river, to the distant gold-creeks which offered a refuge from man-hunters in many a deserted cabin marooned by the deep snows.
Even the iron frame and steel muscles of the Scotch-Canadian protested against the task he had set them that day. It was a time to sit snugly inside by a stove and listen to the howling of the wind as it hurled itself down from the divide. But from daylight till dark Colby Macdonald fought with drifts and breasted the storm. He got into the harness with the dogs. He broke trail for them, cheered them, soothed, comforted, punished. Long after night had fallen he staggered into the hut of two prospectors, his parka so stiff with frozen snow that it had to be beaten with a hammer before the coat could be removed.
"How long since a dog team pa.s.sed--seven huskies and two men?" was his first question.
"No dog team has pa.s.sed for four days," one of the men answered.
"You mean you haven"t seen one," Macdonald corrected.
"I mean none has pa.s.sed--unless it went by in the night while we slept.
And even then our dogs would have warned us."
Macdonald flung his ice-coated gloves to a table and stooped to take off his mukluks. His face was blue with the cold, but the bleak look in the eyes came from within. He said nothing more until he was free of his wet clothes. Then he sat down heavily and pa.s.sed a hand over his frozen eyebrows.
"Get me something to eat and take care of my dogs. There is food for them on the sled," he said.
While he ate he told them of the bank robbery and the murder. Their resentment against the men who had done it was quite genuine. There could be no doubt they told the truth when they said no sled had preceded his. They were honest, reliable prospectors. He knew them both well.
The weary man slept like a log. He opened his eyes next morning to find one of his hosts shaking him.
"Six o"clock, Mr. Macdonald. Your breakfast is ready. Jim is looking out for the huskies."
Half an hour later the Scotchman gave the order, "Mush!" He was off again, this time on the back trail as far as the Narrows, from which point he meant to strike across to intersect the fork of the road leading to the divide.
The storm had pa.s.sed and when the late sun rose it was in a blue sky.
Fine enough the day was overhead, but the slushy snow, where it was worn thin on the river by the sweep of the wind, made heavy travel for the dogs. Macdonald was glad enough to reach the Narrows, where he could turn from the river and cut across to hit the trail of the men he was following. He had about five miles to go before he would reach the Smith Crossing road and every foot of it he would have to break trail for the dogs. This was slow business, since he had no partner at the gee-pole.
Back and forth, back and forth he trudged, beating down the loose snow for the runners. It was a hill trail, and the drifts were in most places not very deep. But the Scotchman was doing the work of two, and at a killing pace.
Over a ridge the team plunged down into a little park where the snow was deeper. Macdonald, breaking trail across the mountain valley, found his feet weighted with packed ice slush so that he could hardly move them.
When at last he had beaten down a path for his dogs he stood breathing deep at the summit of the slope. Before him lay the main road to Smith"s Crossing, scarce fifty yards away. He gave a deep whoop of triumph, for along it ran the wavering tracks left by a sled. He was on the heels of his enemy at last.
As he turned back to his Siberian hounds, the eyes of Macdonald came to abrupt attention. On the hillside, not ten yards from him, something stuck out of the snow like a signpost. It was the foot of a man.
Slowly Macdonald moved toward it. He knew well enough what he had stumbled across--one of the tragedies that in the North are likely to be found in the wake of every widespread blizzard. Some unfortunate traveler, blinded by the white swirl, had wandered from the trail and had staggered up a draw to his death.
With a little digging the Alaskan uncovered a leg. The man had died where he had fallen, face down. Macdonald scooped away the snow and found a pack strapped to the back of the buried man. He cut the thongs and tried to ease it away. But the gunnysack had frozen to the parka.
When he pulled, the rotten sacking gave way under the strain. The contents of the pack spilled out.
The eyes in the grim face of Macdonald grew hard and steely. He had found, by some strange freak of chance, much more than he had expected, to find. Using his snowshoe as a shovel, he dug the body free and turned it over. At sight of the face he gave a cry of astonishment.
CHAPTER XXIX
"DON"T TOUCH HIM! DON"T YOU DARE TOUCH HIM!"
Gordon overslept. His plan had been to reach Kusiak at the end of a long day"s travel, but that had meant getting on the trail with the first gleam of light. When he opened his eyes Mrs. Olson was calling him to rise.
He dressed and stepped out into the cold, crisp morning. From the hill crotch the sun was already pouring down a great, fanlike shaft of light across the snow vista. Swift.w.a.ter Pete pa.s.sed behind him on his way to the stable and called a cheerful good-morning in his direction.
Mrs. Olson had put the stove outside the tent and Gordon lifted it to the spot where they did the cooking.
"Good-morning, neighbor," he called to Sheba. "Sleep well?"
The little rustling sounds within the tent ceased. A face appeared in the doorway, the flaps drawn discreetly close beneath the chin.
"Never better. Is my breakfast ready yet?"
"Come and help me make it. Mrs. Olson is waiting on Holt."
"When I"m dressed." The smiling face disappeared. "Dublin Bay" sounded in her fresh young voice from the tent. Gordon joined in the song as he lit the fire and sliced bacon from a frozen slab of it.
The howling of the huskies interrupted the song. They had evidently heard something that excited them. Gordon listened. Was it in his fancy only that the breeze carried to him the faint jingle of sleigh-bells?
The sound, if it was one, died away. The cook turned to his job.
He stopped sawing at the meat, knife and bacon both suspended in the air. On the hard snow there had come to him the crunch of a foot behind him. Whose? Sheba was in the tent, Swift.w.a.ter at the stable, Mrs. Olson in the house. Slowly he turned his head.
What Elliot saw sent the starch through his body. He did not move an inch, still sat crouched by the fire, but every nerve was at tension, every muscle taut. For he was looking at a rifle lying negligently in brown, steady hands. They were very sure hands, very competent ones. He knew that because he had seen them in action. The owner of the hands was Colby Macdonald.
The Scotch-Canadian stood at the edge of a willow grove. His face was grim as the day of judgment.
"Don"t move," he ordered.
Elliot laughed irritably. He was both annoyed and disgusted.
"What do you want?" he snapped.
"You."
"What"s worrying you now? Do you think I"m jumping my bond?"
"You"re going back to Kusiak with me--to give a life for the one you took."
"What"s that?" cried Gordon, surprised.
"Just as I"m telling you. I"ve been on your heels ever since you left town. You and Holt are going back with me as my prisoners."
"But what for?"