For the third time, Dick rubbed at his eyes.
“What has happened?” he cried in a hollow, unnatural voice.
A general laugh followed this plaintive inquiry.
“It means,” Corporal Richardson enlightened him, “that everything is all right, Dick. We’ve come to take you back to the post.”
“But how——” began Dick.
“Sandy brought the news to us last night.”
Dick turned reproachful eyes in the direction of his chum.
“I like your nerve,” he said coldly, “and that’s no joke either. You said you’d come back before dark, and all the time you were scheming and planning to sneak back to the post. I suppose it didn’t matter to you how much Toma and I worried.”
“No such thing,” Sandy retorted hotly. “I wouldn’t have gone back to the post at all if I hadn’t come across Malemute Slade. I thought he was dying.”
“Malemute Slade!” Dick stared incredulously.