CHAPTER XV
THE QUEST
It was a weary and travel-stained man that drove a dog-sled into Dawson a fortnight later. The team was like the “musher,” lean and wild-eyed, after their four hundred miles of merciless driving. Through wind and snow this man had kept the trail. Sleep became a thing unknown during the latter stages of the journey. He expected to find D’Arcy in Dawson—and the desire to meet D’Arcy had grown into a craving. He had half killed the dogs and himself in this mad journey, but the incentive was tremendous.
How he missed her! Despite her soul-withering confession, he found himself building up visions of her in his brain. Life had become suddenly hopelessly blank, brightened by one thing—the desire for retribution upon the head of the man who had smashed his idol. 209
Man, sled, and dogs went hurtling down the street—a black mass in the falling snow. He handed them over to a man at the Yukon Hotel and mixed with the crowd in the gaming saloon. No one seemed to know anything about D’Arcy, so he inquired for Hanky Brown. Hanky was at length run to earth in a dance-hall.
“Gosh, it’s Colorado Jim!”
The latter hurled at him the question that obsessed him.
“Where’s D’Arcy?”
“D’Arcy? Who in hell is D’—— Gee, I got you. You won’t find D’Arcy in Dawson. He’s up in Endicott somewhere.”
Jim’s face fell. Endicott was north of the Chandalar River. It meant another journey of five hundred miles back beyond the place where he had come.