North

Before noon the following day all Nolan knew of the disappearance of Skookum. And all Nolan knew also, that the disappearance of the great lead dog had happened simultaneously with the disappearance of Dalzene. And Nolan was neither slow nor loath to establish the relationship between the two occurrences. With tears in her eyes, Lou Gordon told of her conversation with Dalzene, and of the man’s angry threats before he departed. Whereupon another miner’s meeting was hastily called in the Aurora Borealis, a substantial reward was posted for the return of the lead dog, and certain resolutions were adopted which had to do with a more permanent and conclusive disposition of Dalzene than warning him off the river.

Shortly after adjournment of the meeting two dog teams pulled out of Nolan and headed southward down the Koyukuk. The men camped that night in one of the deserted buildings of Coldfoot, and next morning Johnny Atline and Rim Rock swung off the river and headed eastward across the South Fork for the Chandalar in hope of overtaking the fugitive at Caro or Chandalar native village, while Pete Enright and the mail carrier kept on down the Koyukuk.

At the roadhouse, midway between Coldfoot and Bettles it was reported that Dalzene had stopped for breakfast the previous morning, but had pushed on down the river without resting. Inquiry revealed the fact that the man was driving seven dogs, and that, to the best of the roadhouse proprietor’s knowledge, there had been no other dog riding on the sled. He was very sure that had there been another dog he would have noticed it. After informing the man of the pronouncements of the miner’s meetings, the two pushed on.

“He’s sure be’n makin’ good time,” opined the mail carrier, when they were once more upon the trail. “Them dogs of his’n’ll know they be’n somewheres time he gits to where he’s goin’.”

Enright nodded, “An’ if I was in his place,” he answered “Twic’t as fast as the best time I could make wouldn’t be no more’n about half as fast as I’d want to be goin’. Mebbe he’s figgerin’ on restin’ his dogs at Bettles.”

“Kind of cur’us about him only havin’ seven dogs. You don’t s’pose that there Skookum dog could of got away hisself?”

“No,” answered Enright, “He wouldn’t never leave Miss Lou. Him an’ her’s like two pardners. He ain’t never kep’ on a chain or in a corral only except they’re away from home. No, Dalzene’s got him all right, but he ain’t takin’ no chances with him. He knows damn well that dog ain’t a-goin’ to let him handle him without a fight, an’ he ain’t in no shape to waste no time tryin’ him out. He had him all right, prob’ly on his sled tied up an’ covered with a tarp.”

“Wisht they was some new snow so we could track him,” ventured the mail carrier. “This trail’s in better shape than I ever seen it, most.”

“Yes, but we kin see if he leaves it. He’s got to leave a trail if he branches off—an’ where in hell would he branch to?” The mail carrier shook his head dubiously; “He’s a pretty slick, an’ he knows the country down this way better’n what we do. Git us off’n the river, an’ we don’t know nothin’, but he’s off’n it half the time tradin’ hooch to the Siwashes.”

“Slick don’t give him no license to fly. He’s got to leave a trail wherever he hits off the river.”

Despite their anxiety to reach Bettles they camped that night on the trail, and it was nearly noon the following day when they drew up before the trading store to find that Dalzene had left the previous morning after having laid in some three hundred pounds of supplies on credit.

“You better figger on losin’ that there bill of goods, then,” grinned Enright, “But a sled load of grub ain’t goin’ to bust the Company, nohow.”

“What do you mean, Pete? I don’t like Dalzene no more’n you nor no one else does, but he makes big money, an’ he’s good.”

“He may be good all right, but he’s goin’ to be a damn sight more good than what he is, soon as one of us up-river men runs acrost him.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that we held miner’s meetin’ on him Chris’mus night an’ warned him out of the Koyukuk country, an’ next day we held another an’ sort of widened the territory, you might say, to include the rest of the world.”

“What’s he be’n doin’ up river?”

For answer Enright gave a brief, but comprehensive, survey of the situation to date, at the conclusion of which the trader picked up his book and opening it, drew a line around the list of Dalzene’s supplies. Below the entry, and included within the line, he wrote “Lost in freightin’.” Then, to Enright he said: “I’ll pass the word to the boys, Peter. Chances is, you up-river fellows won’t git no crack at him noways, ’count on him havin’ to pass here to git there—if he ever comes back.”

“Where you headin’ now, Pete?”

“Rampart City.”

“Alone?”

“Yeh, that is, I’ll be alone after Fort Gibbon. Joe, here, he’ll have to head north with the mail agin.”

“You want to keep yer eyes open down to Rampart. Dalzene, he’s the only white man livin’ there now. ’Course them Yukon Injuns is plumb gentle an’ cowardly, but keep an eye on ’em. Dalzene he’s got too many wives amongst ’em fer to take no chances.”

“Hell! They’d be glad to see him git what’s comin’ to him! I’ve heard tell how he abuses ’em. Treats ’em worse’n what he treats dogs, an’ then kicks ’em out an’ takes another one.”

“Um-hum,” grunted the trader, “But that don’t give you no license to horn in on it. Wimmin is all alike—white er red.”

Late that afternoon the mail carrier halted the dogs and he and Enright stooped to examine a trail that led off the river to the eastward following the snow-buried course of a small creek.

“Only five dogs an’ a toboggan,” said Enright, after an interval of careful scrutiny. “Some Siwash trapper, see his tracks. Dalzene had Yukon shoes. I seen ’em.” The mail carrier agreed and the outfit moved on down the river, and as they swept out of sight around a bend, Dalzene arose from the snow behind his screen of scrub bushes on the rim of a high bluff and removing the cartridge from the chamber of his rifle returned to his camp in a spruce thicket, and prepared for a two days’ rest.

And a much needed rest it was, for almost from the moment of pulling out of Nolan, the man had been forcing the trail. And it was owing solely to the splendid condition of his seven great malamutes, just in from the fifty mile race, that he had been able to keep ahead of, and even to gain on his pursuers.

Dalzene was no fool. Traveling in the night down the Koyukuk from Nolan, he had resisted the impulse to swing eastward at Coldfoot when by crossing the South Fork, and a high divide, he could have headed down through the wind-swept Chandalar Gap, and thus avoided being seen by any one for upwards of a hundred miles. He knew a better plan, and in the carrying out of this plan it was within his scheme of things to be seen at the roadhouse, and later at Bettles. For having ascertained that he had pulled southward from Bettles, his pursuers would take it for granted that he would follow the main trail to Fort Gibbon. And except for the remote possibility of their meeting someone on the trail, they would be unable to check up on his movements until the Yukon was reached, for the new mail trail to Fort Gibbon leaves the river and swings southward before the native village of Arctic City is reached.

At the roadhouse he had stopped to feed his dogs and eat breakfast, and had immediately pushed on, arriving at Bettles, forty miles down the river, late that night. In Bettles he hunted up one, Andrew, a worthless half-breed who had occasionally helped him to dispose of hooch among the Indians. Andrew’s cabin was well on the edge of the camp, and there Dalzene spent the remainder of the night, and there he fed his dogs liberally, all except the unfortunate Skookum, who, still wound in the blanket, he carried into the cabin and deposited upon the floor without even so much as loosening a turn of the babiche line that had held him in his cramped position on the sled without food or water for nearly thirty hours.

It was Dalzene’s intention to strike away from the river a few miles below Bettles, and hit for the cabin at the head of Dall River, but the thing that had been worrying him all the way was how to leave the river without leaving a trail for his pursuers to follow. This difficulty solved itself quite by accident, as he was devouring the meal Andrew prepared for him. Standing against the wall in a corner of the cabin was a toboggan. Now, the toboggan is rarely used on the Koyukuk, the river trails being without exception sled trails. Only those Indians whose hunting grounds lay in the soft snow country to the eastward of the river traveled with toboggans, and it was from one of these Indians that Andrew had got it in trade. The moment his eyes fell upon it, Dalzene knew that his problem was solved. He would pull out of Bettles in the morning with a sled, but he would leave the river with the toboggan, and instead of his own Yukon snowshoes, he would be wearing Andrew’s Siwash shoes.

A trade was easily effected and early in the morning Andrew pulled out with Skookum on his toboggan, and with orders to wait some eight or ten miles down river until Dalzene came up with him. Dalzene lost no time in transferring his load to the toboggan, and when Andrew pulled back up river with the sled, the hooch-runner pulled two dogs out of his team and toggling them, threw them onto the sled for, although it was a serious tax on the strength of the remaining dogs, he would leave the sign of a five dog team, whereas his pursuers knew that he was driving seven. This accomplished he struck into the hills with the toboggan, after following the windings of the creek some three miles, swung into a spruce thicket and made camp.

That at least one dog outfit would start on his trail as soon as the men of Nolan discovered the loss of the girl’s lead dog, Dalzene had no doubt, and he calculated with remarkable accuracy that the pursuers would not pass the point where his trail swung from the river before noon of the following day. Therefore he went about the preparation of his camp deliberately. He even pitched his small A tent, cut boughs for a bed, and set up his stove. Come what may, he knew that this camp must be of several days’ duration. His dogs needed a thorough rest, for no man could afford to take chances in the wind-swept, almost treeless stretch of country between the South Fork of the Koyukuk and the head of Dall River, with played-out dogs.

Having fed his team, Dalzene turned his attention to Skookum, and after locating the dog’s collar ring with his fingers, he carefully worked back the edge of the blanket and snapped on a strong chain. This done, he dragged the dog to a nearby tree to which he affixed the chain and unwound the babiche line. The moment the last turn of the line loosened, the great dog struggled to his feet, threw off the blanket and with a low growl of fury tried to leap at Dalzene’s throat. But weak from hunger and thirst, and with the muscles of his legs cramped and stiffened and lamed by upwards of forty hours in the tightly bound blanket, his effort was but a pitiful lunge that landed him head foremost in the snow at the man’s feet. For Dalzene had taken no chances, and stood just beyond reach of the chain.

The man laughed aloud as the dog staggered to his feet and with lowered tail, wolfed down great mouthfuls of snow. Walking to the tent, he picked up a dried fish and securing a stout club, again approached the dog which ceased eating snow to glare at him with his smouldering amber eyes, and emit low, menacing growls. Marking well the limit of the chain, Dalzene held out the fish. He noticed that the dog’s nostrils quivered as the scent of the food reached him, but instead of taking it from the outstretched hand, Skookum leaped again, straight at the man’s face. Dalzene’s right arm swung and with a vicious crack, the inch-thick club of green wood met the dog’s skull in mid-air. Skookum collapsed in the snow, lay still for a moment, and dizzily regaining his feet, stood swaying weakly.

“You will, will you?” sneered the man, “You damned devil, you! I’ll tame you! When I git through with you you’ll know who’s boss! I’ll tame you, or By God, I’ll kill you!”

Once more he tendered the fish, but the dog made no move to take it, his half-closed, smouldering eyes glaring at his tormenter sullenly. After a few moments of fruitless trying, Dalzene gave it up for the time being. “If you wasn’t so damn valuable I’d let you starve before I’d give you anything to eat without you took it out of my hand,” he grumbled, “But I don’t dast to take a chanst of losin’ you; I need you in my business. It’s me fer Nome, an’ if I kin pick up a couple more good dogs, with you fer a leader, I’ll git in on them Alaska Sweepstakes. Here’s yer fish, but mind you it’s the last one you git, without you take it out of my hand.” He tossed the fish at the dog’s feet, but the yellow eyes never lowered their gaze, and with an oath, Dalzene stuck the club into the snow, and returning to the tent wrapped himself in his blankets and slept.

So utterly body weary was he that it was nearly noon next day before he awoke and lighted the fire in his stove. Tossing a fish apiece to the dogs, he took another and advancing upon Skookum, pulled the club from the snow and approached to the end of the chain. Only for an instant did the yellow eyes rest upon the club, then their gaze centered on the face of the man. Dalzene stretched out his hand, and mincingly grudgingly, with back hair a-quiver with hate, the great dog came forward and took the proffered fish. Dalzene laughed: “Learn some sense did you? Oh, I’ve handled mean dogs before. You better not try any monkey business with me, or I’ll cave in yer ribs.” Returning to the tent, the man bolted a hasty meal, and picking up his rifle, threw a cartridge into the chamber, fastened on his snowshoes, and started for the river.

Now, the last thing in the world Dalzene wanted to do was to kill a man. Yet, he well knew that unless his dogs got a good rest they would never make Dall River through the deep snow. And he knew, also, that should the pursuers swing onto the toboggan trail that left the river, and come upon him in his camp, they would without the slightest hesitation make short shrift of him. “It’s them ’er me if they take my trail, no matter which way you look at it,” he muttered. “An’ if they ain’t more’n four or five of ’em it’s goin’ to be them.”

A half-hour’s tramp brought him to the rim of a high bluff which he followed to a point that gave an uninterrupted view of the Bettles trail, of the point of departure of his own toboggan trail, and of the narrow creek valley that the toboggan trail traversed. Concealing himself behind a screen of scrub bushes, the man noted with satisfaction that anyone traversing the valley must pass within easy range of his rifle, with absolutely no chance to seek cover, or to scale the bluff and come to close quarters. “An’ they can’t work no sled up through that deep snow, neither,” he grinned. “If they tackle that trail it’ll be back-packin’—an’ they won’t git far. The way things lays, I’m good fer a dozen of ’em. But—at that—I don’t want to have to do it. Someone would git me—some time—an’ when they did—” his voice trailed into silence, and he shuddered.

The sky was cloudless, and far to the southward, from his vantage point, he could see the red disk of the sun, visible for a few minutes above the horizon. He watched it till it disappeared. “Hell of a country, this here, north of the circle,” he growled, “Daylight all summer, an’ night all winter. Nome’s better’n what this is, anyway. I’ll lay up in the cabin fer a couple weeks, an’ then I’ll hit fer the Kobuk, an’ on to Nome. I got plenty grub an’ dog feed to last.” For some minutes after the sun went down the man scrutinized the up-river trail. He shivered. “Gittin’ colder,” he muttered, “Damn ’em! They chased me off the river, an’ now the strong cold’s comin’ on, an’ me in the God fersakenest strip of country they is anywheres. I bet she’s fifty below down there on the river, right now.” He rose to his feet and took a turn up and down the snow, taking care to keep well back from the rim of the bluff. This performance he repeated at intervals, pausing behind his screen to peer into the deepening twilight of the up-river trail. After a couple of hours his vigil was rewarded. A dark spot appeared on the snow, and concentrating his gaze the man saw that the spot was moving. It was a dog outfit coming down the trail. Grasping his rifle, Dalzene threw himself upon his belly and peered over the edge. He made out two men and a dog team. At the parting of the trails they stopped to examine the fresh toboggan track. After some moments they walked back to the sled. They were—yes—they were moving on down the river. Breathing an oath of relief as they passed out of sight around a bend, the man rose to his feet, threw the cartridge from the chamber of his rifle, and walked back to camp.

That evening he tossed Skookum a ball of rice and tallow, and next morning he proffered another fish which the great dog took from his hand in the sullen manner of the previous day with his eyes on the inch-thick club.

Despite the fact of the strong cold, Dalzene decided to attempt the twenty mile stretch of treeless waste that lay between him and the South Fork of the Koyukuk which must be crossed in order to reach the head of Dall River. “I’ll rest easier when I’m a little further off the Koyukuk,” he grumbled, “There’s timber where the Jim River runs into the South Fork, an’ I kin rest up fer the forty mile pull to the cabin.”

What to do with Skookum was a problem. He hated to add the dog’s weight to his load in the deep snow, and yet he knew that the great brute was not sufficiently cowed to allow him to harness him into the team. “Guess I’ve got to tackle it. Might’s well git it over with now as any time. My own leader’ll foller along.” In the tent, he made a muzzle out of babiche. It was a cruel muzzle, known as a “persuader,” or twitch, and used only by the more brutal of the dog-mushers of the North. It consisted of two loops about the jaws, one a fixed loop, held in place by lines running to the collar, and the other a running loop at the end of a long twitch line playing through a small fixed loop, or eyelet in one of the lines to the collar. Thus a jerk on the twitch line in the hand of the driver would cause the running loop to bite cruelly into the dog’s jaws. The refined deviltry of the twitch consists in administering the jerk at a moment when the laboring animal’s sweat-dripping tongue lolls from between his teeth. And Dalzene was a past master in the refinement of cruelty, as witness the devilish cunning with which he affixed the muzzle. Approaching close to the end of the chain he tossed a running noose about the dog’s neck and by main force dragged the struggling, choking brute in a circle that narrowed as the chain wound about the tree. With the dog’s body hard against the tree a few tightly drawn turns of the babiche line held the animal helpless until the muzzle was in place. Cutting the noose, he released the babiche line, and unwound the chain by dragging the dog around the tree by the twitch. After which he picked up his club and approached the muzzled Skookum, who when he saw the man was well within reach of the chain, launched himself at his face. The thick club descended with a muffled thud along the dog’s ribs. A single whimper of pain escaped him as he fell into the snow to be viciously jerked to his feet by the twitch. Eyes glaring, Skookum crouched at the end of the twitch line and Dalzene laughed as a drop of blood from the dog’s mouth reddened the snow. “Guess that’ll learn you they ain’t no pretty faced gal a-handlin’ you now! I’ve got you an’—I’ll git her, too! Some of these fine times I’ll be slippin’ back to Myrtle Crick. They’s only her an’ the old man left over there—an’ with Coldfoot dead, it’s a hell of a ways from the neighbors.”

It took a good half-hour and much clubbing to get Skookum into the lead dog’s harness, but at last it was accomplished, and with the outfit ready for the trail, Dalzene took his place beside the leader, club in one hand, twitch line in the other, and gave the command to mush. Skookum made no move to obey, and the club fell upon his back. Instantly he whirled and hurled himself upon the team, vainly trying to sink his fangs into their thick coats. But the muzzle rendered him harmless, and a moment later, with the harness in hopeless tangle, the dogs piled onto the new leader, ripping and tearing at their helpless victim. Dropping the twitch line, Dalzene sprang among them, raining blows and furious curses as he beat them to the ground. When some semblance of order was restored, he released the dogs and set himself to the task of untangling the harness. As he removed the lead harness he kicked the bleeding Skookum to his feet.

“You will, will you? I’d ort to let ’em et you up! But I didn’t resk stealin’ you fer nothin’. I need you, or I’d kill you, an’ kill you slow, with a club. I ain’t got time now to work you in the lead, but you wait till we git to Dall River! I’ll tame you! An’ you’ll work till you git there, too! I won’t haul you, an’ I don’t dast to turn you loose, so you’ll work behind, an’ Mick, kin run loose.

“Mush on, there!” cried the infuriated man, when he finally succeeded in stringing the team out. And with their own leader in his accustomed place, the dogs pulled. Sore and bleeding, Skookum moved along with the rest, his head hanging and his plume held low. And so the traverse of the desolate barren to the South Fork was accomplished, Dalzene breaking trail and urging on his dogs with whip and voice. It took thirteen hours for the twenty miles, but as he crawled between his blankets that night the man breathed easier.

The forty miles to the head of Dall River was made in two days, after one day of rest. Skookum traveled between the traces and gave very little of his strength to the pull, a fact that brought him much abuse by whip and twitch, whenever Dalzene could spare time from trail breaking.

On reaching the head waters of Dall River, the man ensconced himself in the cabin. Skookum, his muzzle removed, was left on the end of his chain, tethered to a tree, where each day for a week, Dalzene took fiendish delight in provoking an attack and then knocking the great dog down with his club. The procedure never varied. Each morning Skookum took a fish from the hand that Dalzene extended to the extreme limit of the chain, and always his yellow eyes were fixed on the club the man held in his right hand. Later in the day Dalzene would approach with the hated muzzle in his left hand instead of the fish, and then it was that the yellow eyes would blaze, the hair bristle along the dog’s back, and the low growl rumble continuously from the mighty throat. “I’ll tame you, damn you! One of these days yer goin’ to stand while I muzzle you without windin’ you up, an’ I’ll keep on knockin’ you down till I do!” The man would approach to just within the limit of the chain, the dog, lips drawn back to expose the gleaming white fangs, would crouch in the snow, his yellow eyes blazing hate, and with muscles taut, would launch his eighty-five pounds straight at the man’s face. A quick backward spring, and the heavy club would crash against the great body in mid-air, and Skookum would fall in the snow to stagger to his feet and glare his abysmal hate.

At length came a day when the strong cold gave way before heavy clouds. The temperature rose to near zero, and early in the morning snow began to fall. Skookum took his fish as usual, and withdrew to the tree to eat it, and Dalzene stood for a moment and watched him.

“We’ll be pullin’ fer Nome, soon, you hellion! An’ we might’s well finish this thing one way er another, today. Yer goin’ to work fer me—an’ yer goin’ to work in the lead! An’ yer goin’ to begin now!” For some moments the man studied the superb lines of the great dog. He had been wiser had he studied the chain, and still wiser had he noted that upon several occasions during the week of torture, before the body of the huge brute had fallen into the snow, it had described a half turn which had caused the chain to kink close against the collar. But of this Dalzene knew nothing and an hour later he approached through the driving snow storm, muzzle in one hand, club in the other. Instantly the great dog crouched. The yellow eyes glared, the throaty growl rumbled savagely and beneath his body the mighty muscles of his legs tensed. With outstretched hand the man drew just within the limit of the chain, his fingers tightening upon the club. It was the first warm day, and he had thrown off his heavy mittens. Like a flash the great dog hurtled out of the snow straight for his face. He leaped backward, club arm raised to strike at the instant the chain checked the dog in mid-air. A shriek of mortal terror froze on Dalzene’s lips as the chain parted. Instinctively the hand that held the muzzle was thrown up to guard his face, and in that instant the hand was seized in a grip of iron, as he was hurled backward into the snow. A single agonizing flash of pain shot to the man’s shoulder as the gleaming fangs ripped through the flesh to the bone. The next moment he realized that the hand was free, and that the great dog had disappeared in the storm.

Struggling to his feet, Dalzene rushed for his rifle, but by the time he reached the cabin, Skookum had vanished, and staring into the void of whirling snow, the man burst into an insane tirade of shrill curses. The dripping of warm blood from his finger tips gave him pause, and he gazed in horror at his mangled hand. Then stepping into the cabin, he proceeded to bandage it as best he could with strips torn from an extra shirt.

That night he could not sleep for pain, and next morning, with much difficulty, he harnessed his dogs, and headed southward down Dall River. “Might’s well hit fer the Yukon,” he muttered savagely. “They won’t have nothin’ on me down there, now that I ain’t got the dog. An’ there’s an army doctor at Fort Gibbon.”