The snarling of dogs being put into harness awoke him in the morning, but he lay pretending to sleep until Tillie, having overseen the hitching-up, came in, prepared food over the fire, which had not gone out all night, and came timidly and laid a hand on his shoulder.
It was pitch dark when they went from the tepee. The dogs whined at the prospect of a dark trail, and the hunter who held them plied his whip savagely. With the rifles carefully stowed in their buckskin cases on the sledge, and a big camp-axe, as their whole burden, Reivers immediately took command of the dogs and headed down the river.
“Oh, Snow-Burner!” chattered the frozen hunter in disappointment. “There are no caribou to the south. It is a waste of strength to hunt there.”
“There are no caribou anywhere for you,” retorted Reivers. “For me it does not make any difference where I hunt; the spirits are with me. Stay close to the tepees to-day. If any one follows my trail the spirits will refuse their help. Hi-yah! Mush!”
Under the sting of his skilfully wielded whip the big team whirled down the river, Reivers riding in front, Tillie behind. But they did not go south for long. A few miles below the camp Reivers abruptly swung the dogs off the river-bed and bore westward.
Half a mile of this and he shifted and changed his course to right angles, straight toward the north.
“And now, mush! —— you! Mush for all that’s in you!” he cried, plying the whip. “You’ve got many miles to cover before daylight. Mush, mush!”
He held straight northward until he left the bush and reached the open tundra at the spot where the caribou the day before had swung away farther north. He knew that the herd, being in a country undisturbed by man, would not travel far from the willows where he had jumped them the day before, and he held cautiously on their trail until the first grey of daylight showed a rise in the land ahead. Here he halted the dogs and crept forward on foot.
It was as he expected. The caribou had halted on the other side of the height of land, feeling secure in that region where no man ever came. Below him he could see them moving, and he realised that he must act at once, before they began their travels of the day.
“Tillie,” he whispered, coming back to the sledge, “as soon as you can see the snow on the knoll ahead do you drive the dogs around there, to the right, and swing to the left along the other side of the knoll. Drive fast and shout loud. Shout as if the wolves had you. There are caribou over the knoll. When the dogs see them let them go straight for the herd. But wait till the snow shows white in the daylight.”