“I’ll say he didn’t,” rejoined Sandy, rubbing one eye, which was already commencing to blacken from a blow received at the hands of the man in the dark.
“Let’s hurry and get out of this hole and back to the fort,” said Dick hastily.
All three hurried on and reached the blinding sunlight of the canyon without further mishap. An hour later they were in the big log house of the factor, gathered around the map, listening to Walter MacClaren’s directions regarding it. Toma, the young Indian guide who was to accompany them on the trail to the lost mine, had joined them. His dark, immobile face was over the table with the rest, when a tall, long-haired man entered. They looked up.
“Hello, Malemute,” Dick greeted the newcomer. “What’s the news?”
“Reckon we’re goin’ to have company on this here trip,” said the big man. “A constable of the mounted from Fort Dunwoody has just come in with instructions to capture a party of fur thieves, hidin’ in the territory you’re goin’ into.”
“Good! We may need him badly before we get through,” Dick replied.
Malemute Slade, an official scout for the mounted police, who through the effort of the factor had been detailed to accompany the boys on their trip northward, agreed with Dick, and ushered in a scarlet-coated, brisk-looking officer, at sight of whom both Dick and Sandy emitted exclamations of delight. It was no less than Corporal Richardson, an old friend, whom they had aided when he was wounded on the trail from Fort du Lac to Fort Dunwoody.
Corporal Richardson was as pleased as they at this reunion, and, at their invitation, joined them around the big table in the post living room.
That night, after a brain-taxing afternoon, following the factor’s instruction regarding the location of the lost mine, Dick lay wide awake until very late, thinking over the happenings of the day. He had a bunk curtained from the living room, not far from the entrance to MacClaren’s private sleeping room. He realized that Sandy’s uncle had taken the map with him, and half that kept him awake was a fear that another effort might be made to steal it. Lying there, looking up into the impenetrable darkness, it seemed that a hundred suspicious sounds were audible. But at last he fell fitfully asleep.
It seemed to Dick that he had slumbered for only a moment, when suddenly he was wide awake, his skin prickling as if some unknown presence were in the room. Quietly he lay there, listening in the darkness, forcing the dullness of sleep from his senses. What had awakened him?