For three hours Dick had been breaking-trail steadily and had reached the point where his endurance was spent, where it seemed to him that to take one more step would result in physical collapse. Behind him straggled a perspiring, panting line of weary dogs and wearier men, while ahead—snow; acre upon acre, mile upon mile, interminable, never-ending—snow!
The sun of late afternoon shone brightly on the snow and made of it a vast, brilliant, sparkling field of intolerable whiteness. To gaze for any length of time into that field was impossible. The human eye wavered before that blinding radiance, could not for long meet and hold its glaring intensity. So it was that Dick looked down as he staggered on at the head of the column, and so it was that every other member of the party moved forward with bent head.
They were travelling northeast in the general direction of Keechewan Mission. Keechewan Mission was at the end of an imaginary straight line—a very straight line—beginning at the Mackenzie River barracks. Sometimes, because of topographical obstructions—hills, ravines, dense forests, and the like—the party was forced to deviate or detour from the prescribed route. Naturally this wandering brought confusion. No one knew with any degree of certainty whether, when they came back and attempted to get on the right track again, they were a little east or a little west or directly upon that imaginary line.
It was a problem that would have absorbed the interest of a navigator or a civil engineer. To Dick, however, it was a hopeless tangle—blindly guessing at something and hoping it would come out all right. More and more he fell to consulting other members of the party, especially Toma, who had a strong sense of direction, and who had been uncannily successful in guiding Dick and Sandy on previous expeditions.
He was thinking of all this as he plodded wearily along. Perhaps even now they were off the trail and would eventually come to grief in some forbidding wasteland, far from the haunts of men.
He heard footsteps behind him and felt the weight of a hand upon his shoulder.
“What—you break trail all time. You go back now an’ drive ’em my team an’ ride a little while mebbe. Too hard break trail an’ no stop an’ rest.”
It was Toma, of course. Always faithful and observing. A ready champion and trusted friend.
“It’s good of you,” Dick said wearily. “I am tired. My eyes hurt too. This glare is terrible.”
“It very bad,” agreed the young Indian. “One dog driver back there,” he pointed, “him almost snow-blind.”