"Double dealin', eh? I s'pose I'd ort to be out there breakin' my back diggin' in the snow, so I could divvy up with you dust that I could have all to myself, by takin' it easy. I offered to share the dust with you, cause I figgered I needed yer help in bumpin' off them two. If you don't help, you don't git paid, an' that's all there is to it."
The Indian returned with the provisions, and in the morning of the third day they struck out up the Coppermine, with the Indian breaking trail ahead of the dogs.
"I didn't expect 'em to show up," grinned Claw,
as he trudged along behind the Captain. "I figgered if they didn't make camp that first stretch, they never would make it. Full of hooch, a man ain't fit to hit the trail even in good weather. He thinks he kin stand anything—an' he can't stand nothin'. The cold gits him. Here's what happened. The storm gits thick, an' they git off the course. The Siwash is lost an' he tries to wake up Ace-In-The-Hole. He finds the bottle of hooch—and that's the end of the Siwash. Somewheres out on the sea-ice, or in under the snow on the flats they's two frozen corpses—an' damn good reddence, I says."
Shortly after noon of the sixth day on the trail, the Dog Rib halted abruptly and stood staring in bewilderment at a little log cabin, half buried in the snow, that showed between the spruce trunks upon the right bank of the stream. Claw hastened forward, and spoke to him in jargon. The Indian shook his head, and by means of signs and bits of jargon, conveyed the information that the cabin did not belong to the Indian camp, and that it had not been there at the time he fled from the camp. He further elucidated that the camp was several miles along.
"Must be some of 'em got sore at the rest, an' moved up here an' built the shack," opined Claw, "Anyways, we got to find out—but we better be heeled when we do it." He looked to his revolver, and stooping, picked up a rifle from the sled. The Captain followed his example, and Claw ordered
the Indian to proceed. No one had appeared, and at the foot of the ascent to the cabin, Claw paused to examine a snow-covered mound. The Captain was about to join him when, with a loud yell of terror, he suddenly disappeared from sight, and the next moment the welkin rang with his curses, while Claw laughing immoderately at the mishap, stood peering into Brent's brush-covered shaft. It was but the work of a few moments to haul the discomfited Captain from the hole. "Shaft, an' an ore dump," explained Claw. "This here's a white man's layout, an' he's up to date, too. They ain't be'n burnin' in, even on the Yukon, only a year or so. Wonder who he is?"
The two followed the Indian who had halted before the cabin, and stood looking down at the snowshoe trail that led from the door.
"Off huntin', I guess. Er over to the Injun camp. Looks like them tracks was made yesterday. He ain't done no work in the shaft though sence the storm. We'll go in an' make ourself to home till he gits back, anyhow. I don't like the idee of no white man in here. 'Cordin' to who it is—but——"
"Mebbe it ain't a white man," ventured the Captain.