“Corporal Thalman, an officer sent out ahead of us, has been either killed or lost somewhere in this region, while trailing a half-breed Eskimo murderer, called Fred Mistak. Sloan and I are after Corporal Thalman, or what’s left of him, and of course we intend to get Mistak.”
“What did I tell you?” Dick whispered aside to Sandy.
“We will probably be up here for several months,” continued the Corporal, “and about all I’ll expect of you fellows is to keep your eyes open for a white Eskimo. Just a hunch of mine, and while you’re doing that, Sloan and I will look around for traces of Thalman. We’ll all have to hunt, more or less, in the meantime, because we haven’t enough meat in our supplies to last. Ought to be plenty of musk-ox further inland. For the present we’ll make this Eskimo village our headquarters. I guess that’s about all.”
“We understand,” said Dick, and Sandy nodded importantly. Toma’s inscrutable face did not express the excitement he must have shared with his two young white friends.
When the policemen departed a few moments later, they left behind them two sleepless boys, who could scarcely wait for the real beginning of the man hunt.
CHAPTER III
BIG GAME
“Look! Polar bear tracks!” Dick’s exclamation brought Sandy to his side in an instant and together they bent over a human-like footprint in the snow, their rifles clutched tightly in mittened hands that already had begun to perspire with the excitement of promised big game.
It was three days since the boys had arrived at the Eskimo camp with the policemen, and the present found them hunting musk-oxen several miles from camp. Corporal McCarthy and Constable Sloan had gone to a neighboring Eskimo village, seeking information regarding the lost Corporal Thalman, and Toma had been left at headquarters to take care of the dogs and keep a lookout for the “white Eskimo,” whose presence in the vicinity had been suspected due to the incident of the whalebone spear, and to the spy who had looked in at the igloo window.
The policemen had not exercised bad judgment in leaving the boys alone. Dick Kent and Sandy McClaren had proved to the mounted police how capable they were of taking care of themselves in the savage northland, and the self-control they evidenced upon sighting the polar bear tracks was ample proof that the dangers they already had coped with had strengthened them for even more daring deeds.
“It can’t be very old,” Sandy commented, in a whisper, after inspecting the bear tracks a few moments.