“It hardly seems possible we’re at Fort Dunwoody,” Dick declared when they attacked the ample breakfast set before them by the post cook.
Sandy shivered in recalling the narrow escapes they had had and agreed with Dick.
Toma, who had slept before the fire on a bearskin rug, was as silent as he always was when off the trail, but his moon face was split by a continuous smile.
Malemute Slade was waiting at headquarters when the boys reported as instructed. His dog team of six huge huskies stood in front of the Inspector’s office, harnessed to the sled, ready for the trail.
Dick and Sandy were pleased to find that Malemute Slade remembered them. His dark, wind-hardened face lighted up pleasantly, as he shook hands with his future trail mates.
“Wal, I swan,” he exclaimed, “I guess we’ll do some tall fightin’ now.”
Dick and Sandy assured him they were with him with all they had to offer, and after Inspector Dawson had wished them good luck, they mushed across the parade square to the stockade gate, which swung slowly open for them.
Hour after hour the relief detachment from the post traveled northward. Malemute Slade would not permit the boys to sleep longer than five hours. Long before dawn they were up, had eaten a hasty breakfast, while the dogs wolfed their daily frozen fish, and had hit the trail again. Dick and Sandy had grown almost as trail hardened as Toma on their long trip from Fort du Lac to Fort Dunwoody, and they did not complain at the terrific pace set by Malemute Slade.
On the afternoon of the third day, more than a hundred miles north of Fort Dunwoody, they saw from the top of a ridge the white, level expanse of Gray Goose Lake. They had not been molested along the way and they decided that Govereau was doing all his fighting at Gray Goose Lake.
Around the lake they broke into rough and serrated country, through which they proceeded cautiously. Soon they heard the faint report of rifles, by which they located the scene of combat.