By fragments the story of Moonshine Sam’s experience in the blizzard came out. There had been a division in the band, Mistak and Moonshine Sam quarreling and going their separate ways. Only one half-breed had had the courage to mutiny against Fred Mistak, and follow the white man. The two had been caught out in the storm with no food, dogs, or sleeping bags. Only by chance had they reached the igloos of the policemen’s encampment.
It was hours before Moonshine Sam finally fell into a troubled sleep, and the boys could seek rest themselves.
When they awakened, Toma was bending over them.
“Police come back. They in igloo. Want you come to them,” said the young Indian.
Outside, on the way to the policemen’s igloo, the boys found dusk upon the desolate land. Only a rim of the sun shed its fiery radiance upon an overhang of dull, gray clouds. Winter was overtaking them.
The boys found two gaunt and grim men when they crawled into the snow house of the two officers. Constable Sloan had been wounded in an ambush perpetrated by Mistak, shortly after the boys had started back to camp with Thalman. Mistak had bested them for the present, Corporal McCarthy was forced to admit, but the question was, should they give up and go south before winter, leaving Mistak free in his fastnesses.
“That’s up to you, Corporal McCarthy,” Dick and Sandy replied as one. “You’re the commander of this expedition.”
“Well, then, I’m for staying here,” went on the officer. “I’ll get Mistak if I die in the attempt, and I mean what I say. Sloan swears he’ll stick by me, but that’s no reason why the rest of you should. If you start tomorrow you can go by sledge to the nearest seaport and book passage back to Canada before you get caught in the long night, and travel is made unsafe. What do you say?”
“We won’t quit,” Dick returned, pale but determined. “Sandy and I want to see this to a finish and Corporal Thalman swore only yesterday that he’d never let us take him back until Mistak went with him, or was left behind for the foxes.”
“Shake,” Corporal McCarthy extended a hard hand, and Dick and Sandy grasped it in turn.