“Didn’t you say you would trust me?”
“Yes, I did, old boy.”
“Does it look like trusting me to refuse the very first order I give you? What an example to Okématan! I am in command, Dan. Do as you’re bid, sir, and sit down.”
With a faint smile, and a still more dubious shake of the head, Dan obeyed. He sat down on the empty sledge and the expected result followed. In a few seconds he was asleep.
“Now we’ll pack him in tight,” observed his brother, as he and the Indian stretched the sleeper at full length on the sledge, wrapped him completely up in the warm buffalo-robes, and lashed him down in such a way that he resembled a mummy, with nothing visible of him except his mouth and nose.
Four strong large dogs were attached to each sledge in tandem fashion, each dog having a little collar and harness of its own. No reins were necessary. A track beaten in the soft snow with his snow-shoes by the Indian, who stepped out in front, was guide enough for them; and a tail-line attached to the rear of each sledge, and held by the drivers, sufficed to restrain them when a stretch of hard snow or ice tempted them to have a scamper.
The road thus beaten over the prairie by Okématan, though a comparatively soft one, was by no means smooth, and the rough motion would, in ordinary circumstances, have rendered sleep impossible to our hero; but it need hardly be said that it failed to disturb him on the present occasion. He slept like an infant throughout the whole night; cared nothing for the many plunges down the prairie waves, and recked not of the frequent jerks out of the hollows.
Hour after hour did Peter Davidson with his silent companion trudge over the monotonous plains—hope in the ascendant, and vigour, apparently, inexhaustible. The dogs, too, were good and strong. A brief halt now and then of a few minutes sufficed to freshen them for every new start. Night passed away, and daylight came in with its ghostly revelations of bushes that looked like bears or buffaloes, and snow-wreaths that suggested the buried forms of frozen men.
Then the sun arose and scattered these sombre visions of early morning with its gladdening, soul-reviving rays.
At this point the rescue-party chanced to have reached one of those bluffs of woodland which at that time speckled the plains—though they were few indeed and far between.