Sandy was only too glad to give way to the big officer, and he quickly dropped back with Dick, where the heavy sledge, loaded with supplies, packed the snow and made snowshoeing comparatively easy.
For a time the chums trudged on without speaking, then, while they were passing a ridge of ice, which had been carved by wind and sun into queer patterns, Dick gave voice to a conviction:
“Sandy, this looks as if it was going to be a dull trip. Here we’ve been mushing north for a month and we haven’t seen anything more dangerous than caribou, ptarmigans and snowshoe rabbits.”
“I wouldn’t be too sure just yet,” said Sandy. “Uncle Walter was half a mind not to let us go on this trip. You know there was something dangerous in the wind or he wouldn’t have felt that way about it. I asked him why the policemen were being sent up here, but he just kind of laughed and said, ‘Oh, nothing,’ like he meant it was a whole lot.”
While they talked, the boys were bent over their snowshoes, and did not instantly notice a shirring sound followed by the muffled plunk of an object striking the packs on the sledge with considerable force. The first either knew anything unusual had occurred was when Dick chanced to glance up and caught sight of something protruding from the packs and the rear of the sledge.
“Stop the team!” cried Dick excitedly.
Corporal McCarthy’s booming command was followed by a brief tangle of snarling dogs, then the sledge came to a dead stop. All the members of the party gathered about Dick Kent, who was pulling something from the packs.
What he at last succeeded in extracting was a short, barbed spear, the head made of whalebone lashed to a smooth spruce handle with reindeer sinews. The weapon evidently had been thrown from the top of the ice ridge alongside which they had been sledging, and what was even clearer, the spear arm of the hidden enemy had been exceedingly powerful and well-trained. Instinctively, almost, all eyes were lifted to the brow of the ridge, and the policemen drew their pistols. But nothing was to be seen save the barren crest of the icy hill.
“I’ll go up and take a look around,” Corporal McCarthy spoke briskly. “Jim!” he turned to the other officer, “you stay here. It’s possible this fellow was an Eskimo, but again it may be one of the renegade Taku Indians that were reported as far north as this. I’ll be back pretty quick.”
With that the big policeman drew a 30.30 rifle from the sledge lashing and started up the icy slope of the ridge. The others silently watched him disappear over the summit. At any moment they expected to hear the report of a rifle. But the minutes ticked by and all remained silent. At first they were relieved, then their fears mounted. It was possible that whoever had thrown the spear had other deadly weapons at his disposal. If Corporal McCarthy were ambushed——