“Look out there!” cried the Corporal. “This is a trap you can bet and we’ll go slow.”
Sandy apparently was gagged, for though he had begun to wriggle, he made no sound with his mouth except an almost inaudible gurgle.
Corporal McCarthy was pawing in the snow for something. Dick finally saw what he was after—a stone. The policeman finally found one that was quite heavy. He raised this above his head and to Dick and Toma’s amazement, threw it out upon the snow between them and Sandy.
The boys expected the stone to bound and roll a little way, but to their horror, as the stone struck it disappeared and, following it, more than twenty square feet of snow caved downward with a rustling hiss and disappeared into a fathomless black void.
Dick’s gasp of dismay was followed by a piercing voice from the shadows of the boulders behind them. It was the voice that had done the laughing, but this time it did not laugh but cried out in an expression of rage and disappointment.
Corporal McCarthy’s rifle was at his shoulder when the sound reached his ears, but there was nothing to shoot at—only the ghastly moonlight of the polar night, and the inky shadows. The policeman raised his rifle and shook it.
“Beat you that time—you half-breed devil!” his big voice pealed out across the desolate wastes. “And I’m praying you’ll come down here and fight it out where I can get a bead on you.”
But there was no answer, and a moment later the Corporal turned back to the boys.
“Clever trap,” he explained in an undertone. “But I had my suspicions, and as soon as I saw Sandy out there in plain sight, I knew there was a nigger in the fence. That was a snow bridge we came pretty near busting through. Wind built it up across this gorge. Now we’ve got to get at the boy.”
Calling across the chasm, they explained to Sandy that they must find some other place to cross over to him. Hurriedly making their way to the left along the treacherous brink, which for many yards was bridged by the frail snow drift, they finally came to a narrow place and one by one leaped over with their snowshoes in their hands. It took them but a few moments to strap on their snowshoes again and run to Sandy. In a trice they had slashed his bonds and yanked the gag from his mouth.