“We’ll go on,” came his decision. “I doubt if we’ll find them ahead, but we can search for the cabin in which the furs are stored. The cache must be there somewhere.”
Later in the day, they came out upon a tree-covered plain close to the Pacific. They camped within a thick shelter of pines, rolled in their blankets, and on the following morning inaugurated a careful, painstaking search.
Weary and discouraged, almost out of food, at the end of the second day they found themselves on the south side of a tiny inlet.
“We seem to be getting nowhere,” Rand confessed. “I believe now that if there is a cache, it’s farther back from the coast. We’ll skirt this inlet and then return inland to see if by any chance we can find a trace of the pack-train.”
Doggedly, in silence, the boys trailed along after Rand. Half an hour later they broke through a tangle of underbrush to a clearing beyond. Their hearts leaped with joy. Built out from the shore was a crudely constructed landing wharf, fashioned entirely from pine and spruce timbers with a covering of hewed poles. Close to the wharf—and what struck their attention still more forcibly—stood a large log building without windows—and with only one door. It was a warehouse—nothing else! Probably the cache itself!
“Hurray!” shouted Dick, as he broke into a run. “We’ve found it!”
They brought up before the door of the building, panting breathlessly. The door was padlocked. In feverish haste, Toma secured a couple of sharp rocks and commenced hammering upon the clasp. Rand was smiling now for the first time in many hours. When the efforts of Toma had been rewarded, he stepped forward and yanked open the barrier.
“Murky Nichols has been storing fur in here for the past three or four years,” he told the boys. “This will be the largest cache of stolen fur ever seized by the police. It will mark the end of a series of lawless depredations by the cleverest gang of crooks that has ever operated in the North.”
When he had ceased speaking, the corporal stepped inside. The place was dank, dark, evil-smelling. It was impossible to see anything. Standing just behind him, Toma struck a match. The tiny flame flared up, but failed to light the mysterious, dark recesses of the room. Dick and Toma alternated in lighting matches. They pushed their way farther into the darkness, groping about like ghouls in some subterranean passage.
Moisture had sprung out upon Dick’s forehead. He was trembling and hot. Each tiny taper carried them farther and farther on their round of exploration. Finally, Corporal Rand stopped short and threw up his hands in an exasperated gesture.