“That’s the thing to do,” Corporal Richardson spoke up from his blankets. “The Indian has it right. The cabin is between six and eight miles from here. You can take me there and come back and take up young McClaren’s trail.”
Dick was glad to hear the officer’s voice, and to learn that he was once more rational, with abated fever.
“If it’s all right with you, corporal, that’s what we’ll do. Toma, let’s hurry.”
In a few minutes the camp where they had been held up a day and two nights had been deserted and out across the vast, endless expanse of snow, Toma and Dick toiled in the dog traces, dragging the wounded policeman.
They had gone some two miles and were resting when suddenly they were startled by the sound of a dog driver’s voice from over the knoll they had just coasted down. Was it friend or enemy? Dick prayed it was a friend as he hurried to the top of the little hill and looked.
A team of eight dogs, followed by a lone man, swinging a long whip, was coming along the trail they had made in the snow. Dick waited till the man had come a little nearer. Then he revealed himself. The man saw him almost immediately, and drew his dog team to a slower pace. The stranger seemed suspicious as to Dick’s identity, but the evident distress of the young man on the hill reassured him. He came on to within hailing distance, and stopped his team, raising his rifle.
“If you’re one of that Henderson gang,” called the man threateningly, “I’ll plug you where you stand.”
Dick breathed a sigh of relief. “We’re bound for Fort Dunwoody,” he replied. “We’ve got a wounded policeman on our sled and have only one dog.”
Satisfied that Dick was telling the truth, the shouted to his dogs and came on. A moment later he joined Dick and Toma alongside the sled.
“By gar, I tink I never get out of dat country.” the newcomer, appearing to be a French-Indian, mopped his brow. “That Pierre Govereau one tough customer. Yah!”