“I hear him. We go careful now. Mebbe him Corporal Rand. But no take chances. Not always be too sure.”
Rand it was. He stood waiting for them, one hand on his hip, the other raised in a warning gesture.
“They’re ahead—not more than a few rods. Listen, and you can hear them.”
“Yes, I can hear something,” whispered Dick. “Did you think we were never coming, corporal?”
“As a matter of fact,” Rand answered him, “I didn’t expect you for another half hour. You’ve made good time.”
The three started forward slowly, keeping always within sound of the cavalcade in front. Sometimes they approached so closely that they could hear the voices of the packers and occasionally the snarling of the dogs. Soon they had learned something of importance: La Qua’s pack-train consisted both of ponies and dog teams. There were seven or eight horses, in addition to four teams of huskies.
“You see,” explained Rand, “La Qua was in a predicament. The snow storm interfered with his plans. His original intention, evidently, was to take only pack-horses. The heavy snow made this inadvisable. But he didn’t have as many dog teams as he required to move away the cache. So he was forced to use the ponies as well.”
Just before daybreak, the pack-train halted in the lee of a small mountain. From a position a few hundred yards away, concealed by rocks, Rand and the two boys watched it. Breakfast was soon in progress. Smoke curled up from several campfires. It was not an altogether unpleasant scene and Dick’s mouth watered at the thought of the nourishing meal, piping hot, the outlaws would presently sit down to. He even imagined he could smell the appetizing odor of frying bacon and the pungent aroma of coffee. A little crestfallen, he nibbled at his own emergency rations, huddling down against a flat surface of rock.
Later, Dick looked out again, eyes bleared and bloodshot. Every muscle in his body ached. Lack of sleep had induced a strange condition—an overpowering lassitude he could not shake off. The rustling of a pine tree near by had become a sing-song, half-musical chant, which momentarily grew louder. His vision played him false. Objects around him were distorted, sometimes grotesque. His mind had lost its function. Nothing was real. Nothing mattered. He fell asleep, sitting up—a sleep so sound, so intense, so deep that Rand saw the uselessness of attempting to wake him.
When he recovered consciousness, he heard the corporal speaking: